Yasir Arafat's legacy of terror

On Sunday, at a memorial for the tenth anniversary of Yasir Arafat's timely death at his shrine in Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas said that the tomb is only in a temporary location, and it will be relocated as soon as possible to Jerusalem.

I cannot imagine any Israeli leader ever allowing the master mass-murdering terrorist to be buried in the city of David and Solomon.

Arafat was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in dozens of terror attacks - even after he signed the Oslo accords.

If you want to talk about desecrating the holy city, burying him there would be the ultimate desecration.

Here is a list, prepared by CAMERA 10 years ago, detailing the major terrorist activities of Yasir Arafat.

– Aug 4, 1929: Born in Cairo. Arafat, then named Muhammad Abdel Rahman Abdel Rauf al-Qudwa al-Husseini, is fifth child of prosperous merchant, Abdel Raouf al-Qudwa al-Husseini.

– 1933: Arafat's mother dies. He and his infant brother are sent to live with uncle in Jerusalem.

– Late 1950's: Arafat co-founds Fatah, the “Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine.”

– Jan. 1, 1965: Fatah fails in its first attempted attack within Israel — the bombing of the National Water Carrier.

– July 5, 1965: A Fatah cell plants explosives at Mitzpe Massua, near Beit Guvrin; and on the railroad tracks to Jerusalem near Kafr Battir.

– 1965-1967: Numerous Fatah bomb attacks target Israeli villages, water pipes, railroads. Homes are destroyed and Israelis are killed.

– July 1968: Fatah joins and becomes the dominant member of the PLO, an umbrella organization of Palestinian terrorist groups.

– Feb. 4, 1969: Arafat is appointed Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO

– Feb. 21, 1970: SwissAir flight 330, bound for Tel Aviv, is bombed in mid-flight by PFLP, a PLO member group. 47 people are killed.

– May 8, 1970: PLO terrorists attack an Israeli schoolbus with bazooka fire, killing nine pupils and three teachers from Moshav Avivim

– Sept. 6, 1970: TWA, Pan-Am, and BOAC airplanes are hijacked by PLO terrorists.

– September 1970: Jordanian forces battle the PLO terrorist organization, driving its members out of Jordan after the group's violent activity threatens to destabilize the kingdom. The terrorists flee to Lebanon. This period in PLO history is called “Black September.”

– May 1972: PFLP, part of the PLO, dispatches members of the Japanese Red Army to attack Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, killing 27 people.

– Sept. 5, 1972: Munich Massacre —11 Israeli athletes are murdered at the Munich Olympics by a group calling themselves “Black September,”said to be an arm of Fatah, operating under Arafat's direct command.

– March 1, 1973: Palestinian terrorists take over Saudi embassy in Khartoum. The next day, two Americans, including United States ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, and a Belgian were shot and killed. James J. Welsh, an analyst for the National Security Agency from 1969 through 1974, charged Arafat with direct complicity in these murders.

– April 11, 1974: 11 people are killed by Palestinian terrorists who attack apartment building in Kiryat Shmona.

– May 15, 1974: PLO terrorists infiltrating from Lebanon hold children hostage in Ma'alot school. 26 people, 21 of them children, are killed.

– June 9, 1974: Palestinian National Council adopts “Phased Plan,” which calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on any territory evacuated by Israel, to be used as a base of operations for destroying the whole of Israel. The PLO reaffirms its rejection of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for a “just and lasting peace” and the “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

– November 1974: PLO takes responsibility for the PDFLP's Beit She'an murders in which 4 Israelis are killed.

– Nov. 13, 1974: Arafat, wearing a holster (he had to leave his gun at the entrance), addresses the U.N. General Assembly.

– March 1975: Members of Fatah attack the Tel Aviv seafront and take hostages in the Savoy hotel. Three soldiers, three civilians and seven terrorists are killed.

– March 1978: Coastal Road Massacre —Fatah terrorists take over a bus on the Haifa-Tel Aviv highway and kill 21 Israelis.

– 1982: Having created a terrorist mini-state in Lebanon destabilizing that nation, PLO is expelled as a result of Israel's response to incessant PLO missile attacks against northern Israeli communities. Arafat relocates to Tunis.

– Oct. 7, 1985: Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro is hijacked by Palestinian terrorists. Wheelchair-bound elderly man, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and thrown overboard. Intelligence reports note that instructions originated from Arafat's headquarters in Tunis.

– Dec. 12, 1988: Arafat claims to accept Israel's right to exist.

– September 1993: Arafat shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, inaugurating the Oslo Accords. Arafat pledges to stop incitement and terror, and to foster co-existence with Israel, but fails to comply. Throughout the years of negotiations, aside from passing, token efforts, Arafat does nothing to stop Hamas, PFLP, and Islamic Jihad from carrying out thousands of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. With Arafat's encouragement and financial support, groups directly under Arafat's command, such as the Tanzim and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, also carry out terror attacks.

– Oct. 21, 1996: Speaking at a rally near Bethlehem, Arafat said "We know only one word - jihad. jihad, jihad, jihad. Whoever does not like it can drink from the Dead Sea or from the Sea of Gaza." (Yediot Ahronot, October 23, 1996)

– April 16, 1998: In a statement published in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, Arafat is quoted: "O my dear ones on the occupied lands, relatives and friends throughout Palestine and the diaspora, my colleagues in struggle and in arms, my colleagues in struggle and in jihad...Intensify the revolution and the blessed intifada...We must burn the ground under the feet of the invaders."

– July 2000: Arafat rejects peace settlement offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which would have led to a Palestinian state.

– September 2000: New "intifada" is launched. Arafat continues to incite, support and fund terrorism.

– Jan. 3, 2002: Israelis intercept the Karine-A, a ship loaded with 50 tons of mortars, rocket launchers, anti-tank mines and other weapons intended for the Palestinian war against the Israelis. The captain admits he was under the command of the Palestinian Authority.

– September 2003: IMF report titled "Economic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditions," states that Arafat has diverted $900 million of public PA funds into his own accounts from 1995 - 2000.

Below are some of the attacks since Sept 2000 perpetrated by groups under Arafat's command:

– May 29, 2001: Gilad Zar, an Itamar resident, was shot dead in a terrorist ambush by Fatah Tanzim.

– May 29, 2001: Sara Blaustein, 53, and Esther Alvan, 20, of Efrat, were killed in a drive-by shooting south of Jerusalem. The Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack.

– June 18, 2001: Doron Zisserman, 38, shot and killed in his car by Fatah sniper fire.

– Aug 26, 2001: Dov Rosman, 58, killed in a shooting attack by Fatah terrorist.

– Sept 6, 2001: Erez Merhavi, 23, killed in a Fatah Tanzim ambush shooting near Hadera while driving to a wedding.

– Sept 20, 2001: Sarit Amrani, 26, killed by Fatah terrorist snipers as she was traveling in a car with her husband and 3 children.

– Oct 4, 2001: 3 killed, 13 wounded, when a Fatah terrorist, dressed as an Israeli paratrooper, opened fire on Israeli civilians waiting at the central bus station in Afula.

– Nov 27, 2001 - 2 killed 50 injured when two Palestinian terrorists opened fire with Kalashnikov assault rifles on a crowd of people near the central bus station in Afula. Fatah and the Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility.

– Nov 29, 2001: 3 killed and 9 wounded in a suicide bombing on an Egged 823 bus en route from Nazereth to Tel Aviv near the city of Hadera. The Islamic Jihad and Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Dec 12, 2001 - 11 killed and 30 wounded when three terrorists attacked a bus and several passenger cars with a roadside bomb, anti-tank grenades, and light arms fire near the entrance to Emmanuel in Samaria . Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Jan 15, 2002: Avi Boaz, 71, an American citizen, was kidnapped at a PA security checkpoint in Beit Jala. His bullet-riddled body was found in a car near Bethlehem. The Fatah's Al-Aksa Brigade claimed responsibility for the murder.

– Jan 15, 2002: Yoela Chen, 45, was shot dead by an Al Aqsa Brigade terrorist

– Jan 17, 2002: 6 killed, 35 wounded when a Fatah terrorist burst into a bat mitzva reception in a banquet hall in Hadera opening fire with an M-16 assault rifle.

– Jan 22, 2002: 2 killed, 40 injured when a Fatah terrorist opened fire with an M-16 assault rifle near a bus stop in downtown Jerusalem.

– Jan. 27, 2002: One person was killed and more than 150 were wounded by a female Fatah suicide bomber in the center of Jerusalem.

– Feb 6, 2002 - A mother and her 11 year old daughter were murdered in their home by a Palestinian terrorist disguised in an IDF uniform. Both Fatah and Hamas claimed responsibility.

– Feb 18, 2002 : - Ahuva Amergi, 30, was killed and a 60-year old man was injured when a Palestinian terrorist opened fire on her car. Maj. Mor Elraz, 25, and St.-Sgt. Amir Mansouri, 21, who came to their assistance, were killed while trying to intercept the terrorist. The terrorist was killed when the explosives he was carrying were detonated. The Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Feb 22, 2002: Valery Ahmir, 59, was killed by terrorists in a Fatah drive-by shooting north of Jerusalem as he returned home from work.

– Feb 25, 2002: Avraham Fish, 65, and Aharon Gorov, 46, were killed in a Fatah terrorist shooting attack south of Bethlehem. Fish's daughter, 9 months pregnant, was seriously injured but delivered a baby girl.

– Feb 25, 2002: Police officer 1st Sgt. Galit Arbiv, 21, died after being fatally shot, when a Fatah terrorist opened fire at a bus stop in the Neve Ya'akov residential neighbhorhood in northern Jerusalem. Eight others were injured.

– Feb 27, 2002: Gad Rejwan, 34, of Jerusalem, was shot and killed by one of his Palestinian employees in a factory north of Jerusalem. Two Fatah groups issued a joint statement taking responsibility for the murder.

– March 2, 2002: A suicide bombing by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem killed 11 people and injured more than 50.

– Mar 5, 2002: 3 were killed and over 30 people were wounded in Tel-Aviv when a Fatah terrorist opened fire on two adjacent restaurants shortly after 2:00 AM.

– Mar 5, 2002: Devorah Friedman, 45, of Efrat, was killed and her husband injured in a Fatah shooting attack on the Bethlehem bypass "tunnel road", south of Jerusalem.

– Mar 9, 2002: Avia Malka, 9 months, and Israel Yihye, 27, were killed and about 50 people were injured when two Fatah terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at cars and pedestrians in the coastal city of Netanya on Saturday evening, close to the city's boardwalk and hotels.

–March 21, 2002: An Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bomber exploded himself in a crowd of shoppers in Jerusalem, killing 3 and injuring 86.

– March 29, 2002: Two killed and 28 injured when a female Fatah suicide bomber blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket.

– March 30, 2002: One killed and 30 injured in an Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

– April 12, 2002: Six killed and 104 wounded when a female Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade suicide bomber blew herself up at a bus stop on Jaffa road at the entrance to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda open-air market.

– May 27, 2002: Ruth Peled, 56, of Herzliya and her infant granddaughter, aged 14 months, were killed and 37 people were injured when a Fatah suicide bomber detonated himself near an ice cream parlor outside a shopping mall in Petah Tikva.

– May 28, 2002 - Albert Maloul, 50, of Jerusalem, was killed when shots were fired by Fatah terrorists at the car in which he was traveling south on the Ramallah bypass road.

– May 28, 2002 - Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists killed Netanel Riachi, 17, Gilad Stiglitz, 14, and Avraham Siton, 17, three yeshiva high school students playing basketball.

– June 19, 2002: Seven people were killed and 37 injured when a Fatah suicide bomber blew himself up at a crowded bus stop and hitchhiking post in the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem.

– June 20, 2002: Rachel Shabo, 40, and three of her sons - Neria, 16, Zvika, 12, and Avishai, 5 - as well as a neighbor, Yosef Twito, 31, who came to their aid, were murdered when a terrorist entered their home in Itamar, south of Nablus, and opened fire. Two other children were injured, as well as two soldiers. The PFLP and the Fatah Al Aqsa Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

– July 25, 2002: Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, was killed in a Fatah shooting attack near the West Bank community of Alei Zahav.

– July 26, 2002: St.-Sgt. Elazar Lebovitch, 21, of Hebron; Rabbi Yosef Dikstein, 45, of Psagot, his wife Hannah, 42, and their 9-year-old son Shuv'el Zion were killed in a Fatah Al Aqsa Brigade shooting attack south of Hebron. Two other of their children were injured. – July 30, 2002: Shlomo Odesser, 60, and his brother Mordechai, 52, both of Tapuach in Samaria, were shot and killed when their truck came under Fatah fire in the West Bank village of Jama'in.

– Aug 4, 2002: 2 killed and 17 wounded when a Fatah terrorist opened fire with a pistol near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.

– Aug 5, 2002: Avi Wolanski (29) and his wife Avital (27), of Eli, were killed and one of their children, aged 3, was injured when terrorists opened fire on their car as they were traveling on the Ramallah-Nablus road in Samaria. The Martyrs of the Palestinian Popular Army, a splinter group associated with Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Aug 10, 2002: Yafit Herenstein, 31, of Moshav Mechora in the Jordan Valley, was killed and her husband, Arno, seriously wounded when a Fatah terrorist infiltrated the moshav and opened fire outside their home.

– Sept 18, 2002: Yosef Ajami, 36, was killed when Fatah terrorists opened fire on his car near Mevo Dotan, north of Jenin in the West Bank.

– Oct 29, 2002: Three people, including 2 fourteen year olds, were shot to death by a Fatah terrorist.

-- Nov 10, 2002: Revital Ohayon, 34, and her two sons, Matan, 5, and Noam, 4, as well as Yitzhak Dori, 44 - all of Kibbutz Metzer - and Tirza Damari, 42, were killed when a Fatah terrorist infiltrated the kibbutz, located east of Hadera near the Green Line, and opened fire.

– Nov 28, 2002: 5 killed and 40 wounded when two Fatah terrorists opened fire and threw grenades at the Likud polling station in Beit She'an, near the central bus station, where party members were casting their votes in the Likud primary.

– Apr 24, 2003 - 1 was killed and 13 were wounded in a suicide bombing outside the train station in Kfar Sava. Groups related to the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PFLP clamied joint responsibility for the attack.

– May 5, 2003 - Gideon Lichterman, 27, was killed and two other passengers, his six-year-old daughter Moriah and a reserve soldier, were seriously wounded when Fatah terrorists fired shots at their vehicle in Samaria.

– May 19, 2003: 3 were killed and 70 were wounded in a suicide bombing at the entrance to the Amakim Mall in Afula. The Islamic Jihad and the Fatah al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades both claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Aug 29, 2003: Shalom Har-Melekh, 25, was killed in a Fatah shooting attack while driving northeast of Ramallah. His wife, Limor, who was seven months pregnant, sustained moderate injuries, and gave birth to a baby girl by Caesarean section.

– Jan 29, 2004: 11 people were killed and over 50 wounded in a suicide bombing of an Egged bus no. 19 at the corner of Gaza and Arlozorov streets in Jerusalem. Both the Fatah-related Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

– Mar 14, 2004: 10 were killed and 16 wounded in a double suicide bombing at Ashdod Port. Hamas and Fatah claimed responsibility for the attack.

– May 2, 2004: Tali Hatuel, 34, and her daughters - Hila, 11, Hadar, 9, Roni, 7, and Merav, 2 - of Katif in the Gaza Strip were killed when two Palestinian terrorists fired on an Israeli car at the entrance to the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of Gush Katif. Fatah and Islamic Jihad claimed joint responsibility for the attack.

But there is more. Because Arafat also coordinated attacks with Hamas and Islamic Jihad since at least 1997:

During March 9-13, 1997 (and perhaps earlier), Arafat met personally in Gaza with the leaders of Hamas and other militant groups, and gave them the "green light" to resume terrorist attacks. Following those meetings, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak told Israel Radio on March 23, 1997: "Organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have an understanding from the Palestinian Authority to carry out attacks." After the outbreak of the violence in September 2000, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah coordinated together under the umbrella of the "Nationalist and Islamic Forces," led by Fatah.

In a memorandum captured in Operation Defensive Shield, the Secretary-General of the Fatah office in Tulkarm requested that Arafat provide $2,000 to each of 15 specifically named "Fighting Brethren" of the Tanzim military wing of Fatah. According to Israeli military sources, each of the "fighters" was involved in the planning or execution of suicide attacks. With his own signature in Arabic, Arafat authorized the payment of $800 to each of the "fighters" on April 5, 2001.


On September 19, 2001, Arafat personally approved a request for payment of $600 to three people including Ra'ad Karmi, commander of the Tanzim in Tulkarm, who was personally involved in at least 25 shooting attacks against Israelis. Arafat funded Karmi even though Israel had placed Karmi on its "most-wanted" list just three months earlier.5 On the same day, Arafat approved payment to Amar Qadan, a member of his own Force-17 "Presidential Guard," who was involved in terrorist operations.

A second request was faxed to Arafat to fund 12 more terrorists. According to Colonel Miri Eisin of the IDF Intelligence Branch, "Every single one of them was on our wanted list...these are Tanzim members, which is Arafat's own party."6 Arafat knew well that these individuals were involved in terrorism. Nevertheless, on January 7, 2002, "Arafat himself - in his handwriting, with his signature...agreed to pay the money."

On January 17, 2002, two and a half weeks later, a Palestinian killed six Israelis and wounded twenty-six at a bat-mitzvah party in Hadera, initiated and planned by one of those on Arafat's list Mansur Saleh Sharim, who was already responsible for the deaths of at least three Israelis. Senior Fatah figures in Israeli custody, like Marwan Barghouti, admitted subsequently that Arafat approved funding for Fatah operatives with the knowledge that it would be used to finance terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

Arafat is the architect of modern terror. The fact that there is no one within Palestinian Arab society willing to call him a terrorist is in itself proof that Israel has no peace partner.

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Reason #6901 why peace is impossible

A companion piece to yesterday's post on this topic. From NPR:

When the Israelis and the Palestinians were trying to make peace back in the 1990s, one of the buzzwords was "normalization," the attempt by both sides to learn to live together.

But in these days of ceaseless friction, normalization has become something of a dirty word, particularly for Palestinians. [Only for Palestinians - EoZ] Nearly 50 Palestinians from the West Bank encountered these bitter sentiments when they went to Israel for an unusual one-day trip last week.

Their itinerary included visits to Israeli-controlled crossings into Gaza and conversations with Israelis who live nearby. Mustafa Hbub, a Palestinian living in Israel who dreamed up the trip, says he wanted West Bank Palestinians to visit Israeli communities and take home this message of peace.

"The war caused destruction for both Israelis and Arabs. Let's stop this. Peace is done by people, not leaders," says Hbub, referring to the seven weeks of fighting this summer between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza.

Hbub doesn't equate the damage in Israel to the vast destruction in Gaza. But he wanted Palestinians get a peek into the experience of ordinary Israelis. Hbub got help from Buma Inbar, a Jewish Israeli involved in all sorts of efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians together.

Inbar says he knew this effort would fail the moment he saw Israeli TV cameras out the bus window at their first stop.

"Something like 10, 12 cameras of TV stopped there. And I see the Palestinians. I say, 'You want it or no?' They cry, 'No, no, no,'" Inbar says.

It turns out that a different Israeli involved in planning the trip had tipped off the Israeli media.

But why would that be an unpleasant surprise for the Palestinian visitors?

"Honestly, it's complicated. Even in Palestine, it's complicated," says Alin, a young Palestinian woman on the trip who only gave her first name. "People don't want anyone to understand something in the wrong way, that's it. And also maybe people are afraid."

Afraid exactly of what, she wasn't sure. But she knew she didn't want to find out.

"When you say Israelis and Palestinian are together, it's not nice and it's not acceptable. I don't know what's going to happen, but for me, no, I will not put myself in that situation, OK?" she says.

Normalization sounds kind of nice, but actually, it's a real insult. [Only for one side - EoZ] Many Palestinians see playing soccer or even doing business with Israelis as a betrayal — accepting Israeli dominance by acting like everything is normal. This is problem for peace groups.

American Donna Stefano directs the Mideast office of Seeds of Peace, which brings Palestinian and Israeli youth together for summer camp. She says anti-normalization pressure has a real impact on Palestinians.

"When they return from camp, and they try to explain the powerful personal transformation that they've had, it just gets thrown back in their face that, 'It's normalization, it's normalization. You're a traitor talking to Israelis, you shouldn't be talking to Israelis,'" she says.

A trip conceived of, and organized by, the Arab side is very rare indeed. Practically all of these initiatives usually come from the Israeli peace camp. But as long as ordinary Palestinian Arabs are threatened for even thinking of Israelis as human beings, peace cannot happen.

And even Western-funded Palestinian Arab NGOs like Miftah are against any real peace programs that involve coexistence.

Palestinian Arab society as a whole is against real peace, and Arabs who want to make a difference are demonized and threatened if they say anything publicly. This hate is encouraged by Mahmoud Abbas' supposedly moderate government.

Nothing on the horizon suggests that things will ever get better. Without a sea change in Palestinian Arab attitudes towards Israeli Jews, there is no chance that any real peace could ever happen.

(h/t Alexi)

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Why peace is impossible, reason #8249

From Times of Israel:

A young Bedouin man from the Negev was fined NIS 1.2 million ($316 000) by a religious court for sharing a video of a sheikh dancing at an ultra-Orthodox wedding, thus humiliating him, Channel 2 reported.

The story reportedly began when the man, identified only as “A,” shared a video on Facebook which had been circulating for some time on social networks, in which Sheik al-Atrash was seen dancing at the wedding of ZAKA (an emergency response organization) volunteer Berale Yaakovovitch. He also gave a speech at the event in which he blessed the bride and groom on their path together.

The groom confirmed that the sheikh danced at the wedding and said he didn’t understand what the commotion was about. He added that he was happy to have the sheikh there.

But A’s post apparently led to many negative and disparaging comments against the sheikh from across the Arab world, some of which reached the man himself. Al-Atrash turned to the traditional Bedouin religious court, the “Haq al-Arab,” and sued “A” for dishonoring him.

So may people visit Arab areas and are told how warm and friendly they are. And I don't doubt it. This sheikh was clearly very friendly and quite happy to give blessings to his religious Jewish friends.

But in the wider Arab world, an Arab who is friends with Jews is anathema, so much so that the sheikh had to go to court to defend his honor for being "outed" as a Judeophile.

The amount awarded is much higher than the amount of money that is fined in Muslim courts in murder cases!

The court slapped “A” with an NIS 1.2 million fine for allegedly hurting the sheikh’s honor, leaving him thunderstruck.

“How can it be that [for example] for a man who commits murder, the judges impose a NIS 250,000 fine, and for me the fine was like I murdered five people. I’m in shock, ” he said.

“It’s a clip that was on the web for a long time so I just shared it,” ‘A’ told Channel 2. “I didn’t think that it would cause such an uproar or that my life would be in danger.”

When being friendly with Jews is far more dishonorable than being a murderer, the prospects for real peace between Jews and Arabs is less than zero.

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Why peace is impossible, reasons #8270 and #8271

An image of a young Palestinian Arab boy celebrating the kidnapping of three Jewish teens:

That's not why peace is impossible.

The reason peace is impossible is because you cannot find any public voices of disgust in the Arab world at images like these. 

While there is no shortage of Westerners, and Israelis, who will empathize with people who declare themselves to be the enemy, the number of Arabs who empathize with innocent people on the other side is essentially zero. There is an utter lack of ability to see things from the perspective of the other side.

Even worse, there is no desire to do so.

Without empathy, there can be no understanding or compromise. Peace is literally impossible.

The same Facebook page, of the Quds News Network, shares "The last picture of the kidnapped, two minutes before the abduction" - showing a stock photo of three dogs.

That's really the difference. To Israelis, Arabs are human beings who they desperately want to make peace with and to work with in the future as part of an integrated Middle East. They will protect themselves when necessary but they pray for the day when it is not necessary.

To Arabs, Jews are nothing more than dogs. 

And almost no one - not "moderate" Arabs, not human rights groups, not "enlightened" Europeans and Americans - is willing to denounce the sickening hate that is at the root of the Arab world.

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Wishful thinking vs. Hamas' explicit words

A reader wrote to me pointing to an NPR show in Chicago that regularly mentions that Hamas has offered a "100-year hudna" to Israel, effectively offering peace. This is how they dismiss any talk of Hamas having an uncompromising terrorist stance.

(He sent me a link to the most recent example, although I did not listen to it.)

I have looked high and low and cannot find any source for this supposed offer. There are only a couple of secondary sources, mostly comments on anti-Israel websites, none of which link to anything even remotely authoritative.

I once researched about supposed Hamas offers of a 10 or 20 year hudna if Israel would withdraw from every inch of territory across the Green Line before any cease fire.

But what is so funny about these NPR-style leftists clinging to any scrap of a rumor that Hamas wants peace is that they ignore, repeatedly, what Hamas says explicitly every single day.

And here's today's example:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas confirmed today that it will go in the path of resistance and loyalty to the blood of martyrs and sacrifices of prisoners of war and will not compromise on its rights and values and sacred principles.

The group said in a statement on the 66th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba that "We will use resistance in all its forms, especially armed resistance that has proved to be able to deter the occupation and break his arrogance, and we will not deviate from this approach until our rights are fully realized and our achievement of liberation and return."

Hamas rejected any compromise on any inch of the land of Palestine or a portion of our holy places, and said "Jerusalem will remain the capital of the liberated state of Palestine , God willing, and will Al-Aqsa Mosque will remain purely Islamic and undivided."

It takes great effort to misinterpret these words. Unfortunately, NPR and many others will bend themselves into pretzels to figure out a way to do exactly that.

The irony is that it is this very intransigence and love of terror that causes there to be a real nakba, today and for the past 66 years.

(h/t Eli)

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Moderate Arab gets expelled from his union for Auschwitz trip

In March, I posted "An Israeli leftist's lonely search for a moderate Palestinian Arab." Professor Einat Wilf spent months trying to find a single Palestinian Arab who would agree to sign this statement:

"The Jewish people around the world and Palestinian people around the world are both indigenous to the Land of Israel/Palestine and therefore have an equal and legitimate right to settle and live anywhere in the Land of Israel/Palestine, but given the desire of both peoples to a sovereign state that would reflect their unique culture and history, we believe in sharing the land between a Jewish state, Israel, and an Arab state, Palestine, that would allow them each to enjoy dignity and sovereignty in their own national home. Neither Israel nor Palestine should be exclusively for the Jewish and Palestinian people respectively and both should accommodate minorities of the other people."

In the end, she found exactly one. That person was Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi, the head of American Studies at Al-Quds University (ironic enough given the hatred of Israel by the American Studies Association) and founder of the Palestinian centrist movement, Wasatia.

If all Palestinian Arab leaders could sign a statement like this today - a very even-handed statement that places a false equivalency between the age-old Jewish attachment to Eretz Yisrael and the recent nationalism of Palestinian Arabs - then there would be peace, real peace, tomorrow.

But only one person has been found to do it publicly.

Dr. Dajani is the professor who led 27 Palestinian Arab students to visit Auschwitz later that month, to withering criticism.

Now, Dajani's membership in his teachers' union has been suspended because of his trip.

From the Facebook page of Rima Najjar, Assistant Professor of English Literature at Al Quds:

DR. MOHAMMAD DAJANI'S UNION MEMBERSHIP AT AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY HAS BEEN SUSPENDED BECAUSE OF HIS VISIT TO AUSCHWITZ

The attached text is a letter published on the Facebook page of Al-Quds University Union of Professors and Employees, in which it is announced that Dr. Mohammad Dajani's membership in the association has been suspended because of "behavior that contravenes the policies and norms" of the association (meaning the academic and cultural boycott of Israeli universities that the association had voted on). The letter does not state this, but the discussion prior to the announcement refers to the trip he took with some students to visit Auschwitz.

She goes on to say that there is no comparison between Arab students visiting Auschwitz and Jewish students visiting an UNRWA camp - because visiting Auschwitz is unforgivable.

She also quotes another prominent Arab academic, Mazin Qumsiyeh, as saying that Dajanis' visit to Auschwitz is antisemitic!

[Dajani] adopted the Zionist perspective that Judaism and Zionism are the same thing and in our opinion this is an antisemitic attitude to equate Zionism and Judaism and somehow link making peace and Zionism with the issues of Jewish suffering around the world.

The fact is that at least 99% of intellectual Palestinian Arabs cannot stomach the idea that Jews have ever been victims of any sort. They viciously attack the extraordinarily few Palestinian Arabs who truly want to live in peace and coexistence.

If anyone can seriously believe that true peace is possible in such a toxic and hateful environment when a simple admission that Jews were slaughtered is controversial and insulted, I'd love to see their logic.

(h/t Bob Knot)

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Palestinian Arabs attacking their own doctors

In a culture that praises violence as a "right," this is inevitable:

Doctors from a public hospital in Nablus organized a demonstration on Wednesday to protest the assault of a colleague by the relatives of a patient being treated in the pediatrics ward.

Dr. Hussein al-Sleibi was assaulted in Rafidia hospital on Tuesday by two relatives of a child, doctors told Ma'an. The family members threatened al-Sleibi and two nurses with a knife during the incident after claiming they were neglecting the patient.

Doctors said they organized the demonstration to protest a growing number of assaults against medical teams.

Director of the Nablus office of the Ministry of Health, Amirah al-Hindi, told Ma'an that the last decade has seen a spike in violent incidents against hospital staff.

It is not surprising. Palestinian Arabs have been attacking UNRWA, for example, since the very beginning - an organization funded by the world to specifically coddle them. Their leaders say terrorists are heroes. Violence is an inherent part of Palestinian Arab culture, as is the sense of entitlement.

Attacking those who are trying to help them comes naturally.

Given that, what are the chances of real peace with people they hate?

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John Kerry's wishful thinking vs. Middle East reality

Both these videos were released in the past day.

One is John Kerry on Al Arabiya saying why he is optimistic about peace talks. Gosh, he just can't imagine why people wouldn't want to live in peace with each other.Everyone wants the same thing, right?

The other is a MEMRI video of a Hamas youth camp graduation. These are the thousands of Gaza high school kids that underwent paramilitary training and anti-Israel brainwashing over the past several months.

I thought the two videos complement each other.

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Report: Israel planning gas pipeline into Jordan

From Bloomberg:

Israel, seeking to tap recent natural-gas finds for export, plans to build a pipeline from the Dead Sea to the Jordanian border to supply its neighbor, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources expects to begin work on the 15-kilometer (9-mile) link in 2015 and complete it in 2016, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The ministry commissioned the project on behalf of U.S. gas producer Noble Energy Inc. (NBL) and a Jordanian partner, they said.

The 2010 discovery of the offshore Leviathan field, coming after the nearby Tamar find, proved a bonanza for Israel, which expects the gas to meet its needs for a quarter of a century while also enabling exports. For Jordan, which has seen fuel imports from Egypt disrupted by pipeline bombings in Sinai, deliveries from Israel would help to boost security of supply.

An Israeli Energy Ministry official, who asked not to be identified, declined to comment, while calls to Jordan’s energy minister weren’t answered. A spokesman for Noble Energy in Tel Aviv declined to comment when contacted by phone.

Israel, which itself imported Egyptian gas until bombings cut deliveries, reached its first export agreement earlier this week, a 20-year deal to supply a planned Palestinian power station. Noble and its partners at Leviathan, the larger of the two fields, said they’ll get about $1.2 billion to send gas to the plant to be built in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.

Partners in the offshore Tamar field, which include Houston-based Noble, also are in talks to sell gas to Jordanian potash plants for 15 years for $500 million to $700 million, Israel’s Calcalist business newspaper reported last month.

Jamal Sarayreh, the chairman of Jordan’s Arab Potash Co., declined to comment when contacted last week. Noble Chief Executive Officer Charles Davidson said in November the company would prefer to export Israeli gas to neighboring countries than to the Far East, which would require seaborne-tanker shipments.

“We will be able to market more gas regionally at lower capital cost because all of these regional markets are basically using pipes, and in some instances they’re connecting the pipes that already exist,” Davidson said.

The new pipeline will start at Sdom, according to the two people. It will be an extension to an existing link that brings gas to the Dead Sea Works Ltd. chemical plant there.

This is very big news, and it shows the importance of a strong economy to Israel's defensive posture.

Jordan (and Egypt) keep doing an interesting dance, publicly inciting hatred against Israel in their media but privately cooperating with the Jewish state. Deals like this strengthen existing peace agreements but they don't reduce the hate - and this seems to be a governmental decision to keep the old mentality of using Israel to divert attention from internal crises.

The contradictory messages cannot easily coexist, but widespread Arab antisemitism would not allow for the governments to act friendlier towards Israel in public. Note how no one will dare confirm any deals - publicizing them is a dangerous business when the Arab media is so invested in hating Israel and Jews.

Normalization with the Arab world will never happen, even if Israel signed a "peace plan" with the Arab League.  From Israel's perspective, the best that can ever be hoped for is detente, not peace. Deals like these (and you can be sure that there are negotiations to export gas to Egypt as well) help strengthen Israel's position in this detente, and other under-the-table agreements will be made, but there will never be peace in the way that Israelis yearn.

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To protest UNRWA cutbacks, PalArabs shut UNRWA offices

I'm sure there is a logic to this, somehow:

The popular service committees of Palestinian refugee camps in the northern West Bank will shut down all UNRWA offices and programs, except clinics and schools, Wednesday and Thursday.

In a joint statement, the committees said the move was part of ongoing protests against "UNRWA's systematic reductions" in services provided to Palestinian refugees in the region.

The decision came following a meeting Tuesday at the headquarters of the refugees' affairs department in Nablus in the northern West Bank. Representatives of the services committees and northern West Bank districts attended the meeting.

The participants agreed that protests for next week would be determined after a meeting scheduled for Thursday in Ramallah with the director of UNRWA operation in the West Bank.

The committees will decide whether to carry out further protests and when depending on the outcome of the meeting.

One of the UN's oldest agencies, UNRWA faces a $36 million deficit.

"UNRWA will be unable to adequately fund its core services -- especially in education, health and poverty mitigation -- and will be unable to pay December salaries of its 30,000 teachers, medical personnel and social workers," under secretary general Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council.

To protest cutbacks in services they shut down those very services?

Hey, if they do this a couple of times a week, then UNRWA might meet its budget! Everyone will be happy!

By the way, here's what the kids in Balata are being taught by that wonderful agency UNRWA:



UNRWA is reason #4,934 why peace is impossible.

(h/t Israel Muse)

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Mahmoud Abbas' heroes (poster series)

I have been trying to identify the murderers that Mahmoud Abbas embraced last week. Here are four of them.

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Followup: What media covered Egypt's killing two Palestinian Arabs on a boat?

Last month, I reported that Egypt fired on a boat of Syrian refugees, killing two Palestinian Arabs in cold blood.

The next day I noted that the world media completely ignored the story.

Since then, I see that the Anna Lindh Foundation reported the news:

Over the past month, Egypt has witnessed a rapid increase in illegal emigration attempts by Syrian and Palestinian residents due to a rise in anti-foreigner sentiment after the army ousted Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi, with some media accusing them of being Brotherhood supporters and participating in pro-Morsi sit-ins that were dispersed in a bloody August military crackdown.

There are 512 refugees currently being detained in Alexandria police stations, which are not equipped to deal with large numbers including women, children, the elderly, the injured and the sick, human rights lawyer Mahinour El-Masry told Al Ahram.

Most of the detainees are not prosecuted but deported to Turkey, Lebanon or Syria. Those registered with the UNHCR are taken to Cairo, the lawyer explained. Palestinian refugees who fled Syria face the worst fate.

They are deported back to Syria via Lebanon, El-Masry said, because there is no UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) office in Egypt. The last Palestinians deported to Syria after arrival in Beirut were arrested at the Damascus airport, he said.

France's Observer followed up:

According to refugees interviewed by FRANCE 24, as well as Egyptian human rights activists, the coast guard ordered the boat to turn around, but the captain, an Egyptian, refused to do so. They then opened fire, killing two of the refugees, a man and a woman. Witnesses among the refugees said the woman was shot in the back three times. According to a statement from the Egyptian authorities, the coast guard fired in the air, and the bullets accidentally hit the victims.

The boat’s passengers included numerous Palestinians who had fled Syria.

[A Palestinian Arab woman from Damascus said: ]
"When the coast guard approached and started shooting, everyone panicked. We didn’t understand why they were shooting; none of us were armed, and there were children on board! We refused to leave the boat, and tried to call Egyptian media outlets; a few journalists were there when the boat arrived at the port, but the soldiers wouldn’t let them talk to us. We were forced to get off the boat and were promised we wouldn’t be jailed, but then they locked us up in the detention centre. We’ve been here for three days now and don’t know when we’ll be let out. Everyone here is traumatised. We feel like we aren’t safe anywhere."

Finally, Salon mentioned it in a larger story of how Palestinian Arabs fleeing Syria are being screwed by their loving Arab brethren:

Palestinian Syrians in Egypt are caught in a particular legal limbo: UNHCR cannot register them because as Palestinians they fall under UNRWA’s jurisdiction. But UNRWA does not have a mandate to work in Egypt, so this population is left with little recourse.

It is truly bizarre that two refugee agencies, UNHCR and UNRWA, with different mandates, have to work with two separate refugee populations fleeing the same conflict, both insisting that they cannot help any of the other agency's refugees.

When will the world wake up and demand that Arab discrimination against Palestinian Arabs must stop, and insist that they be given the same rights in the Arab world as every other Arab? It's only been 65 years, and yet the Arabs - colluding with the Palestinian Arab leaders themselves - like the situation just as it is, with an ever-increasing "refugee" population that cannot be absorbed and naturalized, by law, into Arab countries.

This is the reason why so many Palestinian Arabs are risking their lives to travel in unsafe boats to Italy and the rest of Europe. They know they are being shafted, but the world prefers to blame Israel rather than work to solve the problem with their fellow Arabs.

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Arab Christian describes Muslim bigotry, reveals more than he intends

I've given Ray Hanania both criticism and praise for his positions as an American of Palestinian origin. We exchanged insults over his support for Helen Thomas' bigotry. Even today he plays fast and loose with the facts. But this piece in Saudi Gazette is worth reading because it is a rare Arab critique of Muslim anti-Christian attitudes:

Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a rightwing anti-peace Zionist, met with a Christian Orthodox priest from Nazareth, Father Gabriel Nadaf, to discuss ways Christian Arabs could become more a part of Israel. The meeting enraged Muslim activists who denounced Father Nadaf as a “Christian Zionist,” and as a “Jew.”

I understand what Father Nadaf is doing. He recognizes that Christian Arabs live in a precarious world with Muslims. They believe that just maybe, Israel might be a better protector of Christian Arab interests. Christian Arabs are denounced for even raising this issue in public. We’re not allowed to talk about it. It’s haram! It’s a sin. But to Christian Arabs, it is real.

In truth, the relationship between Christian Arabs and Muslim extremists is worsening. But the real problem is that mainstream Muslims are doing nothing to confront these fanatics, and in fact they even refuse to see it as a problem that needs to be addressed. But the hatred by Muslim extremists against Christian Arabs is growing. It’s getting worse and many Christian Arabs believe that maybe Israel cares about us more.

This problem has to be viewed in a different, more complex context. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not a simple issue of two sides hating each other. Christians are in the middle. On the one hand, Muslims claim we are “brothers” in arms against Israel. But what happens to us when Israel is gone? Will Muslims respect us or, will Muslims merely resort to confronting us next.

There is an old Arab saying that I grew up with as a child that goes: “On Saturday the Jews. On Sunday the Christians.” We all know what that means. Once Israel is out of the way, Christian Arabs will be next.

...Their voices of rage and hatred should be confronted not by their Christian Arab targets but by the mainstream Muslim community. I shouldn’t be the one confronting him. Mainstream Muslims should be confronting these wild voices of hateful insanity.

It’s incidents like these that have many Christians today concerned about the real long-term goals of Muslims. Are Christian Arabs equal or are we just a short-term opportunity to be abandoned once Israel is destroyed by them.

This piece is notable for a different reason than the obvious of exposing Muslim bigotry in a Saudi publication.

Hanania takes it as a given that Muslim Arabs' major goal is destroying Israel, a viewpoint that he says he doesn't share. Yet even he says "when Israel is gone," not "if." To Arabs, moderate and extremist, Christian and Muslim, Israel is still considered a temporary blight on Arab land that cannot possibly survive; and as long as this attitude remains then real peace is impossible. This simple fact also undercuts Hanania's own thesis in the previous absurd piece I linked to - it is Israel's strategic strength that keeps things peaceful, not a "balance of power." See this previous post about how there really is no such thing as an Arab peacenik.

Christians can breathe relatively easy as long as Israel exists to act as a lightning rod for Arab hate.  Too bad most Western observers don't realize what is self-evident to all Arabs.

As far as I can tell, this piece was not translated into Arabic anywhere, so the people who need to read it never will.

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The EoZ Peace Plan

The reason that Israeli Jews don't trust the Palestinian Arabs is self-evident to everyone with eyes: because the PLO has have reneged on agreements in the past, such as Oslo II. They launched a terror war as a response to failed negotiations. The very first promise that Yasir Arafat made in the 1993 exchange of letters with Yitzhak Rabin, where he stated "the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators" was proven a sham. Even today the terrorist offshoot of Fatah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, is still around and still bragging of its terrorist bona fides.

The PA has done little in the intervening years to make Israelis feel that the PLO/PA could ever be trusted again.

In Article 5 of Annex 1 of the Interim Agreement of 1995, known as Oslo II, the PA promised to provide security as well as free access for Jews to visit the holy sites in Area A, namely Joseph's Tomb and the Shalom Al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho.

The PA never lived up to these promises either, and the only way Jews can visit these holy sites today are with scheduled monthly visits coordinated with the IDF under heavy security. There are still violent incidents reported at each site.

My peace plan is very simple.  Have the PA adhere to its own signed agreements relative to these two sites - just for starters.

This means that the PA would ensure normal daily access to the holy sites in Area A. They would assure that all Jews who visit are safe and feel safe.

This also means that they would have to educate their people in Nablus and Jericho that (just as they insist to the West) they have no problem with Jews, but only with Zionism. Therefore, their people should show respect to those who want to visit and pray at their own holy sites. This would involve a major publicity campaign that would result in a situation where anyone who wants to throw rocks and firebombs at the Jews would be shamed, stopped and reported by their own people. It means that kids would be taught that they must respect Jews as much as they should respect Muslims and Christians. Jewish tourists to those areas would feel free to visit nearby stores and shops safely.

The way things were before the first intifada.

If this would happen - if Palestinian Arabs would act according not only to their signed agreements but also according to their own words when they speak to Western media as far as respecting Judaism and Jews - it would cause a major shift in how Israelis think. It might take a couple of years but when coexistence returns, so would trust. With trust would come the desire for peace. And with the desire for peace would be a flexibility on the part of Israelis that has not been seen in decades. It would be driven by Israeli Jews, not by Americans cajoling both sides towards an illusory "peace."

It all comes down to trust.

Of course, as long as EU-funded NGOs, PA TV and other media, PA politicians and pundits are working overtime against an atmosphere of trust, this is impossible. But the single most effective thing that the Arabs could do, if they were interested in real peace, would be to work to re-establish trust. Without that, everything else is doomed. Israeli reciprocity is a given; after all, isn't that what Israeli Jews want more than anything else, to have normal relations with their neighbors?

On the other hand, any agreement signed without trust is worse than worthless. It is telling that the existing efforts from Oslo I to the Roadmap all were predicated on confidence building measures before peace could occur - and that basic prerequisite seems to have been dropped by the current round of talks that seems aimed at an agreement being signed without that crucial component.

Now, the question is - why aren't the EU, UN and US working towards such a self-evident requirement to establish a real state of trust? How could any shortcut plan possibly work without building trust, that basic prerequisite for peace?

Abbas, in his talk to prominent American Jews, airily stated that "Jerusalem will be an open city. They can come and go freely." Really? Jews would be allowed to freely visit the Temple Mount and the Kotel the Mount of Olives, under Abbas' desired PA security control, without fear? When the PA cannot even make that promise today, one that they signed, for Area A?

In the end, the fact that this EoZ peace plan is not tenable - that the PLO is demanding concessions without giving the Israelis any confidence that they would adhere to this foundational requirement -  is really all the proof you need that real peace is impossible.

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The "Arab Street" is alive and well and spreading fear in the West Bank

For most of the past century, the "Arab Street" has been largely a myth, used to scare Westerners with the idea that at any minute, hordes of Arab savages might go crazy and start doing awful things if Western nations didn't do what the Arabs (or Muslims) wanted. I have called this "The Diplomacy of Fear."

I've documented this idea back to 1877.

In fact, until the Arab Spring, the "Arab Street" pretty much did whatever the leaders told it to do. They controlled the media and they controlled the mood of the country.

Then, things changed. The Arab Street is striking fear not in the hearts of Westerners, but of the very leaders who used to cynically use the idea for their own selfish purposes.

Two events occurred in the last couple of days to show that in the PA, the "street" actually already controls the government and the leaders.

The first one is that Mahmoud Abbas postponed a meeting with dovish Israeli leaders:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled a pre-Rosh Hashana toast with more than 30 ministers and Knesset members that was set for Tuesday because he came under pressure from the anti-normalization movement in Ramallah.

Abbas invited the Knesset’s Caucus on Ending the Israeli- Arab Conflict to his headquarters in Ramallah after a Palestinian delegation was greeted by 30 MKs and ministers and a Palestinian flag at the Knesset on July 31. That meeting emphasized the need to have a show of force in Ramallah to boost the nascent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

But the anti-normalization movement, which is strong inside Abbas’s Fatah party, criticized him for meeting such a high-profile Israeli delegation so soon after the IDF killed Palestinians in recent incidents in Jenin and Kalandiya. They also did not like it that he was hosting a toast in honor of the Jewish New Year.

Is Abbas a leader or a follower? Clearly, he is more beholden to special interest anti-Israel groups in his own party than to keeping mere promises made to Israelis. He is afraid of "the street" and how he would look if he breaks the unwritten rules that they make up.

The second story is that the Jerusalem Arab schools that were considering using an Israeli curriculum (story here) have caved to critics, and rejected the idea of changing the schoolbooks from those filled with anti-Israel lies to those that actually tell the truth (although, admittedly, with some pro-Israel spin.) The publicity was too much - they are in real fear for their lives if they go ahead with the planned curriculum change.

See also the two Forbes articles I linked to on Friday, showing how even modern, high-tech, enlightened Palestinian Arab entrepreneurs are in mortal fear of having their names associated with anything Israeli - even though they happily work with Israelis every day. Again, they are terrified of the Arab street finding out they cooperate with the country that even an independent Palestinian Arab state would need to cooperate with to have a chance of surviving.

Yes, the "diplomacy of fear" has now morphed into becoming the greatest single weapon against Arab progress and peace. Until Palestinian Arabs confront it and say, plainly, that the only way forward is by cooperating with Israel, this hateful thought process will only grow.

This is yet another reason why peace is impossible. And it is yet another problem that no one in the West even considers as they pontificate about "peace plans."

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The idea of real peace is shameful to Palestinian Arabs

From JPost:

For a group of Palestinian and Israeli researchers investigating methods to completely purify water from medicinal materials, working together is nothing short of critical.

“It is a must,” Dr. Rafik Karaman, of Al-Quds University’s College of Pharmacy in Abu Dis, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

The joint Palestinian-Israeli research team from Al-Quds University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is working to assess the use of advanced membrane and bio-degradation technologies for eradicating pharmaceutical materials from treated waste-water. Organized by the Peres Center for Peace and sponsored by the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi, the two-year project aims to investigate the degradation and removal processes of certain drugs found in aquatic environments that come from both domestic and industrial sources.

“In order to facilitate and progress with the research, we need the expertise of the Israeli side,” said Karaman, who is the principal researcher on the Palestinian side. “We can learn from them and they can learn from us, and this way you can do good research in Palestine.”

...While the work together is critical, Karaman stressed that it is nothing new, as Al-Quds researchers have been working with Technion researchers for around a decade on various wastewater projects.

This is the second such project under the auspices of the Peres Center, he explained, crediting the center for enabling them to pursue the research together.

“You learn from the relationship,” Karaman said. “I learn a lot and I also give a lot.”

Here is a great story, a story of cooperation and collaboration between two enemies for the common good. It should be looked upon as a model for the future, a future where two groups of people with historic grievances who are forced to live next to each other put their antipathy aside for the common good.

There is a slight problem, though. Only one side celebrates peace.

Dr. Karaman might have no problem working with Israelis - he received his degrees from Hebrew University - but there is no means within Palestinian Arab culture for that attitude to reach the masses.

If you search through Al Quds University's website, both in English and Arabic, it mentions nothing about working together with Israeli universities. In fact, the only mentions of "Technion" in Hebrew on the site is in an article about how Israel is "Judaizing" Jerusalem. The university has a museum for "prisoners affairs." It has a "human rights clinic" with a single project  - to demonize Israel through the Goldstone Report. Not a word that I could find about human rights under PA rule.

Of course, this cooperative project is not mentioned in a positive light in Palestinian Arab media. On the contrary - this article slams Al Quds for being involved in this project, saying that while it used to be a symbol of steadfastness now it has become a symbol of "normalization."

The best that can ever happen on the Arab side is a grudging admission that there is value in cooperating when absolutely necessary - but this should never be publicized.

For Israelis, real peace is the goal. For Israel's Arab neighbors, anything that resembles real peace is something to be ashamed of.

Which makes this just another reason why peace is impossible.

(h/t Zvi)

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Why peace is impossible - an in depth analysis of Palestinian Arab psyche

The Tower in June published a very important article by Deborah Danan, who is about as left-wing as they come. Excerpts:

A future together will require not only painful concessions, but a willingness of each side to validate the other’s story. But when ordinary Palestinians and Israelis meet, that’s not what happens.

The sit-in was held at a pub in the Hadar neighborhood of Haifa, a common meeting place for Arabs and Jews. The issue at the top of the agenda was how to convey to the world at large that dialogue on the Israeli-Arab conflict still exists and both sides are equally frustrated with the status quo. The vibe in the room was positive, with attendees from both sides encouraged that what the rest of the world calls enemies could sit and drink and talk.

Then, without warning, a stranger intruded. An Arab man had apparently overheard the conversation. He approached the group shouting, “But first you have to let the refugees come home!” An Israeli organizer explained that the meeting wasn’t about solving the refugee crisis—it was about opposing inaction and stasis. But the man wouldn’t have it. Becoming increasingly agitated, he demanded that the issue be addressed. One of the Arab organizers, Mudar, tried to calm him down, telling him in Arabic, “We know it’s not right. We know that the only way is for the refugees to come home, but we aren’t talking about that now.”
The implication, of course, was that one day we will talk about it. In Mudar’s mind, not only will we talk about it, we will make it happen. Like so many of his peers, Mudar—a moderate involved in many coexistence initiatives—is a subscriber to the maximal position on the Palestinian right of return; a position that, if achieved, will effectively put an end to the Jewish state. But the maximal position is a symptom of a far deeper concern, one that is the driving force behind the current impasse in Arab-Israeli relations.

On a cognitive level, Mudar is capable of accepting the fact that it is impossible for Israel to agree to his maximal position. He knows that the return of Palestinian refugees will mean the end of the Jewish state. But Mudar almost certainly does not subscribe to the maximal position out of a desire to harm Israel’s Jewish character. In fact, it probably has little to do with Israel at all. Instead, Mudar is trapped in a psychological construct essential to his identity as a Palestinian—a collectivist identity that dominates the Palestinian mainstream.

One of the more tragic aspects of a collectivist identity is that it stifles those aspects of human behavior associated with the individual. These include critical thinking, accountability for one’s actions and the actions of other members of the collective, the ability to make personal choices, and empathy toward “the other”—particularly an adversarial other. As a result, Palestinian collectivist identity may be one of the most difficult obstacles on the path to peace.

...Palestinian identity is inextricably connected to the naqba. Israeli independence and the resulting war is the seminal event of the Palestinian narrative, turning a group of local tribes, clans, and houses into a nation of refugees. “Palestinian identity is strongly influenced by a sense of victimization, which is evident by displacement and manifested as a collective nationalistic identity,” says University of Nebraska anthropologist Michaela Clemens. Whereas other cultures might see refugee concerns as a temporary issue, the Palestinians’ self-image as refugees creates and molds their identity and, by extension, the conflict itself. Consequently, the right of return has come to be seen as an inalienable right akin to the right to exist.

The extent to which this influences the conflict is pointed out by Phillip Hammack, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hammack examines identity and politics by studying adolescent participants in Palestinian-Israeli coexistence initiatives like Seeds of Peace and Hands of Peace. According to Hammack, the young people who struggled to integrate the experience of coexistence into their life stories experienced an identity crisis. “Palestinian youth,” he observed, “identify with [an] ideology of struggle and victimhood, providing a sense of solidarity and meaning.” This identity is inextricably connected to their political extremism. “Nearly all of my Palestinian interviewees,” Hammack says, “endorsed the practice of suicide bombing as a legitimate form of resistance against the Israeli occupation, identifying bombers as ‘freedom fighters.’”

Paraphrasing Herbert Kelman, a professor of social ethics at Harvard’s department of psychology, Hammack concluded that “large-scale shifts in collective identity may be necessary prior to any serious curtailment of the conflict, as the conflict relies on the reproduction of negatively interdependent collective narratives.”

...As mentioned above, suicide bombings, while not encouraged and often condemned by participants of peace movements, are nevertheless seen as a legitimate form of resistance to the Israeli occupation. In a collectivist society built on the idea of victimhood, struggle—rather than peace—is the ultimate motivating factor. Peace, moreover, may actually threaten collective identity: If struggle is a prerequisite for peace, then any action that serves the struggle, even terror and incitement, is likely to be perceived as legitimate. Peace is sacrificed to the collective.

Individualization, then, is essential to peace. Economic development, education, and democracy will hopefully contribute to a general change in Palestinian collective identity. But ultimately it is the task of the individual Palestinian to break free from the in-group, achieve psychological autonomy, and become an independent agent and master of his own fate. This is the most important step on the way to reconciliation.

This is imperative for Westerners to understand. The idea of Israel as evil and conflict as community-affirming is entwined into the very identity of Palestinian Arabs. If there is peace, they lose their very identities, which depends on demonizing the other side (even among the "peaceniks".)

I would argue that the collectivist mindset was created by and encouraged by Arab leaders who did not want to allow Palestinian Arabs to integrate into their societies. The Palestinian Arabs were forced against their will to be separated from the rest of the Arab world, and because they were politically powerless in that world they were forced to put their energies into the Naqba myth that gave them a powerful enemy who they could comfortably criticize without fear.

I would also point out that the utter lack of empathy that Palestinian Arabs have for anyone else is not a result of this Palestinian Arab collective mindset so much as it is an Arab attribute altogether. Way before 1967, Martha Gellhorn noticed the same kind of thinking:

"If the position were reversed, if the Jews had started the war and lost it, if you had won the war, would you now accept Partition? Would you give up part of the country and allow the 650,000 Jewish residents of Palestine -who had fled from the war--to come back?"

"Certainly not," he said, without an instant's hesitation. "But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea."

....Arabs gorge on hate, they roll in it, they breathe it. Jews top the hate list, but any foreigners are hateful enough. Arabs also hate each other, separately and, en masse. Their politicians change the direction of their hate as they would change their shirts. Their press is vulgarly base with hate-filled cartoons; their reporting describes whatever hate is now uppermost and convenient. Their radio is a long scream of hate, a call to hate. They teach their children hate in school. They must love the taste of hate; it is their daily bread. And what good has it done them?

Here's the answer: Hate gives Arabs a collective identity that is far more important than peace is. The hate is their identity. So even the left-wing, co-existence spouting Arabs really don't want peace with a Jewish state - they want, at best, a state where Jews are a minority and treated as dhimmis, the way they are meant to be.

Read the whole article by Danan, and then re-read the Gellhorn articles from 1961 and 1967, as well as a different interview with Palestinian Arabs in the Aida camp in 2011.

As long as this mindset exists, peace cannot be achieved.

(h/t CiFWatch)

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Don't feed Palestinian Arab babies food. Better to feed them lies.

We mentioned last week that Jordanian MP Tareq Khoury called for Jordan to kidnap Israeli diplomats and tourists.

Here is the banner photo  Khoury uses on Facebook.

Don't feed the baby food. Feed it lies instead.

Just reason #1904 that peace is impossible.

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Reason #7205 peace is impossible

Buried in a health article about the benefits (and sometimes dangers) of afternoon naps in Jordanian newspaper Albaladeyes, we learn about a 2002 Israeli study that correlates mortality and naps in male senior citizens.

But the description of the study is what is interesting:

New research published this month (January 2013) in the journal Sleep Medicine and conducted on a group of seniors in the United States that showed a correlation between naps and atherosclerosis and heart disease. A previous study published in 2002 in the journal Sleep, conducted on Jewish settlers in Palestine, showed similar results.

Now, Last I checked, Jordan recognizes and has a peace agreement with Israel. The study was done fully inside the Green Line. Yet, the author of the article automatically calls the subjects "Jewish settlers in Palestine."

Is there anyone who believes for a second that peace with the PLO would be less fractured than "peace" with Jordan? Clearly, the ordinary citizens of Jordan - and a medical journalist must be smarter than the average Jordanian - simply do not, and will never, accept the idea of a Jewish state. They will reconcile themselves to it if they don't see any alternative, but they will never accept it.

Yesterday, I saw similar beliefs from a PLO official. Speaking to a friendly Muslim audience, he made it clear that Palestinian Arabs will never regard Israel as legitimate, peace agreement or not.

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[Zero-sum game] + [Arab projection] = [Blame the Jews]

As I was reading yet another Arabic article that says that Jews must be behind all the problems in the Arab world because they are the ones who benefit most from Arab chaos, I realized that this type of thinking is not  a manifestation of classic Arab anti-semitism quite as much as it is a necessary result of two modes of Arab thought.

The first, as we've discussed before, is projection. This isn't particular to Arabs - almost all of us do this - but  it means that people tend to think that others use the same logic that they do. (In the Arab and Muslim case, they accuse Jews of doing something that invariably is something that they themselves are invariably guilty of.)

The second is the Arab insistence that the conflict is a zero-sum game. If Arabs win, the Jews lose, and vice versa. This mentality in itself makes peace impossible.

Now, from the Arab perspective, the worst thing happening now is all the intra-Arab conflicts in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere. Since this is undeniably bad for Arabs, the zero-sum mentality makes it appear that this must be good for Israel.

If they believe that this is good for Israel, then Arab projection insists that Israel also embraces the zero-sum mentality. If Israel believes - against all evidence and common sense - that Arab chaos and uncertainty is a good thing, then it makes perfect sense to say that Israel and the Jews are orchestrating this.

This means that it  Sunnis will say Jews are colluding with Shiites, that Assad will blame Jews for the mujahadeen, and the Egyptian army's supporters  will blame the Jews for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Thus antisemitism isn't what causes these crazed accusations, but antisemitism is a requirement for the accusations to be taken seriously.

This translates into the huge increase of purely antisemitic articles in the Arab media over the past year.

Just today, there is an article that insists that the Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna was Jewish! It claims that el-Banna's grandfather was a secret Jew who took on that name, which means "builder," because he was a Freemason. Therefore, the entire Muslim Brotherhood is a Jewish front organization!

And in an interview with Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior advisor for Yasir Arafat and press officer for the PLO, we are told that Israel and the CIA are colluding with the Muslim Brotherhood as well as with the mujahadeen in Syria. (However, he stops short of saying that Hamas is part of the conspiracy, averring that Hamas is too Palestinian to be consciously a part of the plan. )

All these anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories are certifiably nutty. But they are inevitable, as the Arab worldview cannot make sense without them. Self-blame is not acceptable. Jew-hatred is a needed component for the conspiracy theories to work, but the theories are not created for that purpose. Yet the Arab mentality requires a pseudo-intellectual  foundation of  Jew-hatred for the flawed logic to make sense, which leads to more antisemitic writings and speeches, ready to poison the next generation.

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