Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: two-state solution

Showing posts with label two-state solution. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Jessica Tarlov and Her False Statistics About Jews and the Two-State Solution (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Jessica Tarlov is the snotty token Democrat on the Fox News political talk show, “The Five.” The petulant downturn to her mouth is annoying, as are her righteously angry rhetoric and whiny voice. But in some ways, Tarlov’s most important quality is that she always comes armed with facts with which to debate the far more numerous conservatives weighing in on the discussion. Tarlov interprets that data from her liberal perch and bias, but at least the Democratic Party political strategist is using facts.

Or so I thought.

In a discussion regarding the anti-Israel protesters and their new nickname for Kamala Harris, “Killer Kamala,” Tarlov remarked that “The majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution.”

70% of American Jews vote for the Democrats and I believe that number will be the same come November 5th. I don’t think any of this is going to make a substantial difference, but I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have firmly stood with Israel. They have given all the arms Netanyahu has asked for. He has said multiple times that he thanks the administration for it.

If people think Donald Trump is going to be better for Israel, they have another think coming. Because guess what? The majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution and Donald Trump doesn’t care about that at all.

Now, I listen to The Five on my phone with half an ear as I do everything I play on Youtube to keep me company as I prepare lunch or cook for Shabbos. But when I heard that last bit about the two-state solution, my ears perked up. “That’s not true,” I said to myself, mentally making a note to check the numbers on Google.

It was conceivable to think that a majority of American Jews would be in favor of a two-state solution, but I didn’t know this absolutely. Since she was wrong about the Israelis, I thought, maybe she’s wrong about the Americans, too. Even if the majority of Israelis were in favor of a “peaceful two-state solution” whatever that means—it’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one—they sure aren’t in favor of it now, after October 7. That ship has sailed.

Gallup did a survey of Israelis between Oct. 17 and Dec. 3, in the weeks and months following October 7. What they found is that “Israelis no longer support a two-state solution”:

One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it. This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%).

So there you have it. A majority of Israeli Jews do not want a two-state solution. And if that were true it meant that Tarlov was wrong—or at least using way outdated figures. That’s if we are to give Tarlov the benefit of the doubt and assume that she made an innocent mistake as opposed to telling an out-and-out lie. The truth is, it makes no difference. Tarlov’s recitation of false facts robs her of credibility.

Fact-checking Tarlov’s claim that the majority of American Jews favor a two-solution, brought mixed results. A March Pew Research Center survey found that 46% of Jewish Americans think a two-state solution is the best possible outcome, while 22% support a one-state option, preferring all the land to be one country under Israeli rule. 46% of anything, by definition, cannot be a majority—a plurality, yes—but not a majority. That’s an important distinction. 46% of American Jewry does not represent even half of that sector.

A May survey by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), on the other hand, does indeed find that a majority of American Jews, 60%, support a two-state solution. I consider the JCPA to be an absolutely credible organization, whose august panel of experts includes Dr. Dan Diker, Khaled Abu Toameh, and Amb. Alan Baker. The survey offers a snapshot of “the viewpoints of 511 American Jews regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.”

“Conducted between May 9-11, 2024, the survey provides critical insights into the attitudes and concerns within the American Jewish community during this turbulent period. The survey has a margin of error of ±4% and includes a balanced representation by gender and age.”

Of course, the Pew survey had a sample of nearly four times that size, with 1,941 Jewish American respondents weighing in. And I really doubt that the progressive-leaning Jessica Tarlov went digging around on the ‘net, like I did, and stumbling on the JCPA survey, decided to use it as a statistic more to her liking than the one from Pew. Why the suspicion? Aside from the JCPA luminaries already mentioned above is Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s advisor on none other than . . . drumroll please. . .

Israel.

It is difficult to believe that Jessica Tarlov would cite, unless by accident, the results of a survey published by a think-tank with a Trump appointee as its senior director of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. More likely, Jessica Tarlov was thinking of the March Pew survey. In which case, we really need to wonder at the conflation of “majority” with “plurality.”

Not that anyone did at “The Five.” No one among full-time cohosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters, and Jeanine Pirro said a thing in response to Tarlov’s erroneous statistics about Jews and the two-state solution. They must have figured that yet again, they, the non-Jews have been caught flatfooted, undercut by actual Jews when non-Jews try to speak up for them. They certainly wouldn’t have been splitting semantic hairs over “majority” and “plurality.”

At any rate, there wouldn’t have been a way for the cohosts to verify Tarlov’s claims on the spot, while they were live on air, even if some unseen guy were feeding them facts through some gewgaw in their ears. I, on the other hand, had the luxury of time and a laptop to actually investigate Tarlov’s wide-of-the-mark assessment of Jewish attitudes in regard to the stupidest, most unworkable concept on earth: the two-state solution.

The main thing for me, at any rate, was that I learned a lesson, or at least had one reinforced by the exercise. Don’t easily accept stats, especially when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Always question further, even when the one citing those stats seems like a serious person, even if you do disagree with them. Which was how I’d seen Tarlov until now, someone I respected, even if I disagreed with her. Now, even the respect is gone.

Tarlov may be snappy with the stats, but she isn’t being either careful or accurate, playing fast and loose with the numbers as she apparently does. In my eyes, going forward, Tarlov is forever tarnished, and by extension, so is everyone else.

I’ve lost trust.

Can you blame me?

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“I have to believe!” Self-Delusion and the Two-State Solution (Judean Rose)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

It comes up every time someone wistful about peace discusses the two-state solution. “I have to believe” or “I must believe” they say in regard to two states for two peoples. When I hear another robotic pronouncement insisting they must or have to believe in the two-state solution, or peace itself, I always think, “Why must you believe? Why do you have to believe something so obviously false?”

There won’t be a two-state solution, because none of the actual players want this. The Arabs don’t want a two-state solution and neither do the Jews. By the end of October 2023, in fact, support for the two-state solution had dipped to 28.6% of Israeli Jews, while 24% of the Arabs Palestinians supported a two-state solution, down from 59% in 2012. By now, that support—on both sides—will surely have dropped even further.

That’s because two states for two peoples doesn’t solve anything. It is only a nonstarter idea imposed by people who live outside the arena where this longstanding war against the Jews is taking place. The Arabs don’t want two states. They want one state, Judenrein. The Jews don’t want two states, because why should they be required to give up sovereign Jewish territory at all, let alone to those who plague them? That would not be a “solution” but a form of capitulation and subsequent suicide.

Despite the polls and the nonsensical nature of the two-state solution concept itself, liberals continue to proclaim that they “have to” or “must” believe that peace is possible, and that only two states for two people can get us there.

Take the recent hour-long podcast “’I Was Wrong About Antisemitism.’ Sheryl Sandberg on Waking Up,” on Honestly with Bari Weiss. I found myself enthralled, listening to the conversation between these two liberal, intelligent Jewish women, as they discussed Sandberg’s documentary, Screams Before Silence, October 7, Judaism, antisemitism, and politics. The two women had clearly both undergone a sort of culture shock to witness their colleagues’ indifference to the plight of Israeli victims of sexual abuse. It was worse for them still, to hear allowances and excuses made for rapists, in the case where the raped are Jews:

No matter what you believe, we have to stand united against clear use of sexual violence, and then people were still not believing it so I helped organize a conference at the UN where we brought these witnesses who stood there and cried and said “Here's what I saw, what I saw with my own eyes,” and then I took those same witnesses to parliaments in Europe where I certainly think they need to do this, and then we still were having some denial and a whole bunch of silence and some people speaking out, “It's never so black and white.”

Sandberg had worked hard for women’s causes over the years, but now that Jews were the victims, all the women she’d supported and believed were turning their backs, and worse. Some of them were blaming the victims. The general consensus? Believe all women, except when they are Jews. It was a painful revelation for Sandberg. And it woke up something in her Jewish—and liberal—consciousness.

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A post shared by Sheryl Sandberg (@sherylsandberg)

But that consciousness, thus far, only goes so far. Bless Sheryl Sandberg, truly, for documenting sexual violence on and in the wake of October 7. You can see that something changed for Sandberg in the days and months after the massacre, that drove her to do the film. And still, and perhaps all the more so, she “has to believe” in a two-state solution—stubbornly persists in believing what will never be (emphasis added):

What I would say is I think it's made me realize how much harder it's going to be to get to the solution that I still have to believe in. I don't think there's another solution other than two states, but it has to be two states run by people who want their neighbors to live in peace and prosperity.

It flies in the face of all Sandberg has faced and learned since October 7, and yet she persists in forcing herself to maintain hope in a lie, a false dynamic. Why? How does it serve her?

But Sandberg is not unique in insisting on believing something that in reality is a nonsense idea. Ehud Olmert, who served as Israel’s prime minister from 2006-2009, and who served 16 months of a 27-month prison sentence on corruption charges besides, also feels compelled to believe a fictional fairytale is true, or so he says. Rolf Dobelli, founder of WORLD.MINDS interviewed Olmert in 2023 for Politico, and brought up the subject of the two-state solution (emphasis added):

Dobelli: You’ve been a proponent of the two-state solution for a long time. Do you think the time has arrived to finally implement it?

Olmert: First of all, I think that it is the only real political solution for this lifelong conflict between Israel and Palestinian states. There is no other. Therefore, I have to believe that this is possible.

Olmert did more than pay lip service to the insane idea of a two-state solution. In 2008, he promised to give the Arabs up to 94 percent of the land they wanted for a state of their own. Naturally, the Arabs spurned Olmert’s attempts to woo them with land. For the Arabs it’s all or nothing. One state for one people, and they don’t mean Jews.

It doesn’t seem to matter how smart you are, or highly placed. People have this need to believe in what will never, and can never be, two states for two people living side by side in peace.

Take Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State at the time of Olmert’s temerarious 2008 offer. In 2011, looking back at that time, she wrote: “The conditions were almost ripe for a deal on our watch, but not quite. Still, I have to believe that sooner or later, there will be a two-state solution. There is no peaceful alternative.”

It wasn’t the first time Rice had said this. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript of a meeting she had with President Mahmoud Abbas in 2005 (emphasis added):

Remarks With Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas After Their Meeting
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
The Muqata
Ramallah
February 7, 2005

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would just note that in the Palestinian national elections, President Abbas got numbers that would have made any American president extremely happy. It was a very strong vote for his program of a peaceful resolution to the conflict, of peace with the neighbor Israel, of democratic reform and of reconstruction and development to improve the lives of the Palestinian people. I have to believe that what the Palestinian people were responding to is the opportunity to have their children grow up in an environment of peace and opportunity and that is what the president won his election on. We are going to be supportive partners for him and for his leadership as they try and realize that vision for the Palestinian people.

Tom Phillips, British ambassador to Israel from 2006-2010, also pled to believe in a falsehood, in an undated article appearing in The JC:

“If you look at the Palestinian story and the depth of their sense of victimhood — ‘we lost our homes, we have a right of return’ — they must compromise as well. Each side must compromise on an issue that touches its identity. That is going to require great leadership on both sides. I have to believe there is the leadership to do that,” said the ambassador.

But why? Why does anyone “have to believe” there is Arab leadership with the will to make peace, when no such leadership exists?

On October 24, 2023, Jake Tapper of CNN, interviewed Roy Yellin, director of public outreach of the fifth column anti-Israel organization B’Tselem. Yellin too, is delusional, forcing himself to believe what can never be. It’s almost like he’s trying to persuade himself (emphasis added):

I have to believe that in order to stay here. And I do believe that, the only option is to find a way to live with Palestinians, as equal. That I do believe that only we provide people on the other side with full, complete human rights, future, equality, democratic norms. Only like that we can live together.

Academics, too—people you’d expect to be at least slightly intelligent—spout the mantra, resolved to believe a whopper. Here is Janet Freedman of the Brandeis University Women’s Research Center, writing on Feminism and Zionism in 2017 (emphasis added):

I have found that when I offer my definition of Zionism – the right of Israel to exist as a state – those with whom I am speaking usually agree with me. Yet in recent times, there are those who do not, and as eager as I am to embrace coalition politics on a wide range of issues, if a person or group does not support this basic assumption, I will seek others with whom to work toward a resolution of the serious, but, I must believe, still resolvable Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

In seemingly every sphere of society, you can find people pledged to believe something that is not true. Jared Stein, for example, a senior account executive with Customer.io, a "customer engagement platform for tech-savvy marketers" wrote a kumbaya-style essay for LinkedIn about how he chooses to perceive the post-October 7 anti-Israel protesters (emphasis added):

I have to believe that the people marching across the world want the same thing that I do for Israelis and Palestinians - self-determination. Security. Peace. We're all on the same team and should be marching together.

Just try it Bub, and see what happens. Presumably with a name like “Jared Stein,” you won’t last very long—and probably not long enough to realize the extent to which you are self-deluded.

Tova Leigh is a mommy blogger. Or at least she was until she turned 40. That’s when she released her first book, ‘F*cked at 40: Life Beyond Suburbia, Monogamy and Stretch Marks’ in which “Tova takes the reader on her journey of rediscovering who she is after motherhood and beyond the norms society forces upon women, whilst encouraging them to break free and just be themselves.”

Leigh, too, has fallen sway to the demented self-assertion that she really should believe something stupid and untrue (emphasis added):

There is distrust between these two people that runs so deep that sometimes I wonder if it will ever be bridged.
But I want to believe that the people who are ripping down posters of kidnapped babies or chanting "gas the Jews" do not represent the majority of Palastinians, just like I'd like to believe that the people chanting "make Gaza a cemetery" do not represent the majority of Israelis.

Why? Because I would rather believe that more people are good than bad, otherwise I can't function in this world.

Tova? Methinks thou dost profess too much.

But at least Tova Leigh is honest. She simply can’t handle the truth—her brain can’t take it in. Leigh needs to believe a lie in order to function.

There seems to be a lot of that going around. Even or especially now, when the two-state solution has never been less desired by the relevant parties, and has never been so far away. People need to and must believe what they don’t really believe, or they wouldn’t be working so hard to persuade themselves. But it takes more than a will to believe to generate any real hope for the future, or the promise of a better, more peaceful life for Arabs and Jews.

Belief, manufactured or otherwise, won’t cure the Arabs of the enmity they have for the Jews. Two states, ten states, one hundred states won’t slake the Arab lust for Jewish blood. In the end, peace can only come when we acknowledge evil, look it squarely in the face, and banish it from the world.

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Irony of ironies: Palestinians complain about Bibi's map

At the State Department press briefing yesterday, there was this exchange between spokesperson Matthew Miller and Said Arikat of Al Quds:

ARIKAT: I have a quick question on Mr. Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations at UNGA last Friday. He showed a map that completely erases the Palestinians. I wonder if you saw the map and I wonder if you have any comment on it.

MR MILLER: I did see it. I’m not going to get into any discussion about the map that the prime minister chose to use. I will say that the President has been clear, this administration has been clear that the United States will continue to support a two-state solution.

QUESTION: So it doesn’t bother you at all that the map shows the Palestinians just evaporated and so on? I mean, isn’t that like a cause for concern, a cause for saying “that’s our position and we state it very strongly; there will be no normalization without it or anything of such” – or just maybe a mishap on part of the prime minister?

MR MILLER: I did just state what our position is. In addition to my just stating what our position is, that we support a two-state solution

Whether the US or Palestinians like it, Israel still claims that Judea and Samaria are disputed territories, not occupied, and as such there is nothing wrong with an Israeli map including them as part of Israel before there is a peace agreement. (Admittedly, Gaza should not have been included in this map.)

His map of 1948 that showed an Israel that included the entire British Mandate could arguably include all of the territories because of the legal concept of uti possidetis juris which gave Israel, as the only state that existed after the 1948 war, the presumed borders of the entire Mandate.

But the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have, since 1993, consistently claimed that they accept a two state solution with Israel within what they call the "1967 borders."

Yet their maps consistently show a "Palestine" with no Israel.

Looking through recent photographs on Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page, we see his receiving a report from the Palestinian Lands Authority which has a logo that erases Israel:

Here's Abbas lighting a torch to commemorate the anniversary of the PLO's founding, with the PLO logo that erases Israel:

Palestinian Media Watch has scores of examples of official Palestinian erasure of Israel.

Every major Palestinian political party has logos that erase Israel.

If they accept the two state solution, and insist that their borders are the "pre-1967" borders and nothing beyond, than what is their excuse for consistently erasing Israel from their maps?

I would say that their hypocrisy is stunning, but it isn't. It is business as usual.

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"Palestine Writes" conference isn't happy with a two state solution - it wants it all

Here's the description of one of the sessions at the "Palestine Writes" conference being held at the University of Pennsylvania this weekend

The Right of Return and How to Achieve it

One of the most important lessons we have learned from 75 years of exile is that the essence of the struggle has not changed: It is the expulsion of the people of Palestine from their homes and the confiscation of their land. The implementation of the Palestinian inalienable rights is the key to a permanent peace. All else, including a Palestinian state, so-called regional cooperation or other contrived devices to obscure this fundamental issue, is peripheral.

This means that "peace," to these bigots, cannot possibly be achieved as long as there is a Jewish state in existence.

Diana Buttu, a Hamas defender and BDS bigot who is part of the session, has long advocated a "one state" Palestine solution.

It is amazing how 22 Arab states and 50 Muslim-majority states aren't enough, but one Jewish state is too many.

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

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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PA prime minister Shtayyeh tells members of Congress a litany of lies

From the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh Monday met with a delegation of members of the US Congress, which included 22 members of the Democratic Party, headed by Senator Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic Caucus in the House of Representatives, in his office in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

Ramallah isn't occupied. There is not one Israeli soldier there. It has its own governance structure that has nothing to do with Israel. There is no sane definition of "occupation" that makes Ramallah occupied.

The meeting discussed ways to revive the political process and the role of the US Congress in protecting the two-state solution, as the Prime Minister called on Congress to vote in favor of recognizing the State of Palestine.

Shtayyeh has no problem representing all of Israel as part of Palestine, showing how important the "two state solution" is to him.

The Prime Minister affirmed that Israel violates international law on a daily basis through killing, storming and building settlement, stressing that this causes the systematic destruction of the two-state solution.

"Storming"? According to Shtayyeh, Jews visiting their holiest spot are somehow violating international law. Which shows that his interest in real international law is also nil.

Shtayyeh called on Congress to pressure Israel to allow holding of Palestinian elections, including Jerusalem, in accordance with the signed agreements, considering that Israel's failure to allow this is an attempt to fight Palestinian democracy.

Israel isn't what is stopping elections. Mahmoud Abbas is. Jerusalem Arabs can vote in any Palestinian elections as they have in the past.

Did any members of Congress have the backbone to contradict Shtayyeh's lies? I tend to doubt it.

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New poll: Palestinians are as rejectionist of Israel as they ever were

A new poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research of both Israelis and Palestinians finds that while both sides have hardened their positions towards the other, the Palestinians are far more rejecting of any framework that allows Jews to have any rights in the land.

An absurd 84% of Palestinians say that "the suffering of Palestinians is unique throughout the human history." Clearly no one teaches history in Palestinian schools. (80% of Israeli Jews say this about Jews, but they have a couple of thousand years of evidence behind that opinion. The worst event in Palestinian history wouldn't make it into the top 10 of the worst things in Jewish history.)

90% of Palestinians say "Since Palestinians are the victims of ongoing suffering, it is their moral right to do anything in order to survive." To Palestinians, "anything" means even the most immoral crimes against humanity. While 68% of Israelis felt the same way about Jews, I am certain that they interpreted the question differently than Palestinians do: Jews would not include genocide against others in that "anything," but I am fairly sure that Palestinians do.

The moral divide is stark in the responses to the question of whether each group wants to promote good relations with the other. Most Israelis do; the vast majority of Palestinians do not.

Israelis want to co-exist with Palestinians; Palestinians do not want to co-exist with Israelis. How much more obvious can it be that Palestinians do not support any sort of peace with Israeli Jews?

The Palestinians' idea of their "vital goals" is also something instructive - and largely unreported. While 36% said an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and a Palestinian state were vital goal, nearly as many said the "right of return" of Palestinians to the hated Israel is a "vital goal" - meaning they don't want their own people to live in their own state, and would prefer that they are used as a means to destroy the Jewish state.

But beyond that, 19% said that building a state based on "religious values" was a vital goal - more than double the mere 9% who said that democracy is a vital goal. Meaning that more than twice as many Palestinians want a state based on the Quran than one based on democratic values.

These extremist, rejectionist positions are always swept under the rug in Western reporting and "expert analysis," which still claims that most Palestinians want a two state solution.

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Today's cartoons

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02/02 Links Pt1: The Tragic Palestinian Children's Crusade; Biden Announces $50 Million UNRWA Funding; NGOs Blame the Victims: A False “Massacre” in Jenin and “Legitimate Resistance” outside a Jerusalem Synagogue

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: The Role of NGOs in Supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) Investigation

On December 20, 2019, then Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Fatou Bensouda announced that she intended to investigate alleged war crimes in the “State of Palestine” and filed a request with the Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber to confirm her jurisdiction. On February 5, 2021, the Pre-Trial Chamber in a controversial 2-1 opinion confirmed the Prosecutor’s jurisdiction. On March 3, 2021, Bensouda announced the launch of a formal investigation.

This move is to a significant degree the product of consistent and heavy lobbying of the ICC for over a decade by non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Throughout, these NGOs have been central to promoting the Prosecutor’s activities: lobbying the Court to accept the Palestinian Authority, filing complaints, representing “victims,” and submitting briefs. Key NGOs include Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, FIDH (France), and Palestinian and Israeli NGOs. The European Union, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, and other European governments have provided tens of millions of dollars to anti-Israel ICC campaigns and lobbying. In some instances, the European funding was explicitly earmarked for NGO activities vis-à-vis the ICC.

According to the legal principle of “complementarity,” the ICC is only authorized to investigate when a country’s judicial system has proven unwilling or incapable of prosecuting cases that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Even if there is evidence of alleged war crimes, the Court is supposed to respect serious local investigations.

Importantly, as part of the NGO Durban Declaration and accompanying BDS campaigns, advocacy organizations have sought to turn the ICC into a court of universal jurisdiction. Like their exploitation of the UN and other international frameworks, these NGOs seek to use the ICC for demonization and to brand Israeli officials as “war criminals.” In contrast, the ICC was created for the explicit and narrow purpose of prosecuting individuals accused of specified crimes, and not for political legal warfare.

NGO Monitor: NGOs Blame the Victims: A False “Massacre” in Jenin and “Legitimate Resistance” outside a Jerusalem Synagogue

On January 26, 2023, the IDF conducted a preemptive counterterror operation in Jenin, during which nine Palestinians – eight of whom were armed members of Islamic Jihad and other organizations – were killed. The Palestinian Authority, reviving the blood libel from Jenin in April 2002 (Defensive Shield), accused Israel of committing a “massacre” and Gaza-based terrorist organizations launched rockets at Israeli cities.

The next day (Friday night, January 27), a Palestinian murdered seven Israeli civilians outside a Jerusalem synagogue; a few hours later (Saturday morning, January 28) a 13 year-old Palestinian shot and wounded two Israelis in a separate incident in Jerusalem.

NGO responses to these incidents reflect an immoral agenda that stands in direct contradiction to the human rights mandate that they and their funder-enablers claim. Palestinian, Israeli, European, and international NGOs and their officials that commented on Jenin before the Sabbath terror attacks repeated the PA propaganda of a “massacre.”

Other NGOs appeared to justify the terror attacks in Jerusalem, or otherwise blamed Israel for the targeting of Israeli civilians. Even those groups that directly condemned the terror attacks simultaneously included condemnations of Israel. One NGO, the Rights Forum (Netherlands), bizarrely denied that the murder of Jews because they were Jews constituted antisemitism.

Importantly, several very vocal and active Israeli advocacy NGOs, including Adalah, B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence, and Yesh Din, appear not to have issued statements.

The Tragic Palestinian Children's Crusade

On December 12, 2022, 15-year-old Jana Majdi Zakharna was killed during an IDF operation in Jenin. The IDF's investigation revealed that the girl was shot to death on a rooftop as she stood in proximity to a Palestinian gunman who had opened fire at Israeli troops below and that she assisted the gunmen by observing the soldiers' movements.

The Telegram channel "Jenin Al-Qassam," which serves armed Palestinian groups in the Jenin region, has published instructions for "Jihad fighters" that deal with the use of children "to conduct visual observation and information gathering." The Telegram channel also noted that Jenin has a network of observation units staffed by "young people" assisting terrorist groups by documenting on video and delivering reports about the activities of IDF forces.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has written that under international humanitarian law, "Individuals whose continuous function involves the preparation, execution, or command of acts or operations amounting to direct participation in hostilities are assuming a continuous combat function."

Biden Admin Announces $50 Million in New UNRWA Funding

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday announced $50 million in new funding for a UN agency that is dedicated solely to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and which has been widely denounced for propagating antisemitism, eliciting rebuke from a top Senate Republican.

Speaking in Ramallah alongside Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Blinken said that the money, alongside the $890 million the Biden administration has already provided to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) in the past two years, was intended to “rebuild” the relationship between the US and the Palestinian Authority.

“All of these steps are part of the longer term ambition to re-establish, but then not just re-establish, rebuild our relationship, as I said, with the Palestinian people and with the Palestinian Authority,” Blinken said. “And this will allow us to more effectively work toward the goal of Palestinians and Israelis enjoying equal measures of democracy, of opportunity, of dignity in their lives. We believe that that can be achieved by a realization of two states. President Biden remains committed to that goal.”

Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, slammed the move Wednesday.

“The Biden Administration is far too eager to give out US taxpayer dollars to UNRWA,” Risch told The Algemeiner. “I do not support a single US taxpayer dollar going to UNRWA without serious reform, in part because their textbooks continue time and again to include antisemitic content. That is why I will be re-introducing my UNRWA Accountability & Transparency Act which would halt funding to UNRWA until all of its antisemitic issues are thoroughly addressed.”

01/17 Links Pt1: Israel blasts UN demand to lift PA sanctions, restore terror funds; Saudi Arabia's Challenge to Biden: Let's Abandon FDR's Deal With Ibn Saud

From Ian:

If the US wants a two-state solution, it must help the Palestinians help themselves

Specifically, Washington should focus energies and resources on assisting the Palestinians overcome five fundamental obstacles currently preventing peace with Israel and their own independence.

First, it must make its funding for the Palestinian Authority, currently about $235 million per year, contingent on a) the P.A. reforming its notorious educational materials to promote peace and co-existence to children, rather than terrorism and Jew hatred; and b) reforming government media so TV news broadcasts no longer deliver daily diatribes about “filthy Jews” and the Zionist enemy who “stole their land.”

Aid must also be conditioned on the Palestinian leadership ending its unconscionable “pay-for-slay” program—paying lifetime salaries to terrorists who kill innocent Jews. Currently the Palestinians spend some $300 million annually on this program. Ironically, rather than supporting peace initiatives, U.S. taxpayer dollars currently fund most of the pay-for slay program costs.

In short, the United States should reward good behavior and penalize bad behavior. It should stipulate that our financial support depends on the Palestinians ending terrorism and promoting peace. Without such incentives, there is surely no hope for the two-state solution that Biden and other Americans swear they are committed to.

Second, Washington must step up its support for the Abraham Accords, to promote Arab-Israeli cooperation and commerce. Simultaneously, it should invite the Palestinians to take part in the economic and cultural cooperation thriving around them, while making it clear that progress towards normalization and peace will continue with or without them.

Third, it must harshly condemn Hamas’s efforts in the Gaza Strip to lure Israel into wars by periodically launching unprovoked attacks against the Jewish state. Likewise, it should emphatically lend its support to the international community when Israel fights back.

Fourth, it needs to help the Palestinians develop economic self-sufficiency. Currently corruption abounds in the Palestinian economy, and about one in four Palestinians has no job. Without Western aid, the economy would collapse. No two-state solution can happen without a self-sustaining Palestinian economy.

The United States and European Union pour hundreds of millions of dollars into “support” for the Palestinians, but where does this money go? Where are the U.S.- and E.U.-sponsored training, incubator and economic development programs? The most lucrative opportunity in the self-ruled Palestinian territories should be meaningful employment, not terrorist pay-for-slay.

Fifth and finally, the United States should make a concerted effort to strengthen the P.A. and help it regain control of all autonomous Palestinian territories, including Gaza. Two states and Palestinian independence will remain a fantasy until the Palestinians achieve some level of political unity and stability—the structure and institutions of a state.

Caroline Glick: Saudi Arabia's Challenge to Biden: Let's Abandon FDR's Deal With Ibn Saud

Arabs, Ibn Saud said, "would choose to die rather than yield their land to the Jews."

Roosevelt, for his part, assured Ibn Saud "that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people."

Generations of U.S. presidents kept Roosevelt's word. They accepted that Arab rejection of the Jews was legitimate, and that Jewish rights were, at best, contingent on Arab acceptance. The Trump administration was the first to depart from that position—and it did so only after the Arabs themselves abandoned it. Had the Emiratis not made clear they were unwilling to subordinate their national interest of peace with Israel to the Palestinians' intransigence, even President Trump likely would have continued to push Netanyahu to accept Palestinian demands.

Now, Ibn Saud's grandchildren are themselves willing to openly accept Israel, without preconditions. And the question is whether Joe Biden will act as Donald Trump did, and follow their lead.

Depressingly, it appears the Biden administration is not willing to walk away from the FDR-Ibn Saud deal, even though maintaining it alienates Ibn Saud's very heirs. Last week, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken participated in a summit of the Abraham Accords member states in Abu Dhabi. Blinken and other senior officials continued their efforts to stand the Abraham Accords on their head by peddling the outmoded "Palestinians first" paradigm, which dominated the Arab world's fraught relations with Israel until 2020. Blinken, State Department Counselor Derek Chollet, and State Department Spokesman Ned Price all made clear that the U.S. used its presence in Abu Dhabi to divert the discussions away from collective action against Iran and economic cooperation with Israel, and toward Palestinian grievances. Chollet said the U.S. is "fully supportive of the Palestinians joining" the Abraham Accords and that the summit "focused on strengthening the Palestinian economy and improving the quality of life of Palestinians."

While Israel, the Saudis, and the Arab members of the Abraham Accords are focused on blocking Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and becoming a regional hegemon, the Biden administration remains committed—despite its tepid denials—to achieving a nuclear deal, and broader rapprochement, with Iran. Such a deal will provide Iran with the financial means and international legitimacy to become a nuclear-armed regional hegemon that threatens the very existence of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Abraham Accords partners.

In other words, the Biden administration is committed to FDR's hostile posture on Israel, and opposes the Saudis' desire to abandon Ibn Saud's anti-Israel hostility.

The stakes for the U.S. couldn't be higher. If the Biden administration joins the Abraham Accords signees in their full acceptance of Israel as their brother and partner in the lands of Abraham's children, it will secure its legacy and America's posture as the lead superpower in the Middle East for years to come. If it refuses to do so, it will strike a mortal blow to America's alliance system in the Middle East, reducing U.S. power and influence in the region for years to come.

Netanyahu's strategy to strengthen Israel in its 75th year - opinion

Netanyahu has earned the stature to speak without ambiguity
LIKE HIM or not, having served Israel’s government for most of its life and his own, Netanyahu has earned the stature to speak without ambiguity. He ascended to the leadership of an Israel that was still a fledgling, quasi-socialist-agrarian nation in a hostile neighborhood, lacking the confidence to consolidate biblical lands at the core of Jewish identity, surprisingly recovered in the defensive Six Day War of 1967. Instead, he passively accepts his opponents’ descriptions of the territories as “disputed” and eventually “occupied.”

Under his leadership, Israel has been transformed into a vibrant market economy and a technological, intelligence and diplomatic powerhouse. Defying even his own expectations, Netanyahu secured peace agreements with a large portion of the Arab world; the Abraham Accords circle of peace is still expanding, and Israel is establishing diplomatic and economic relations globally at a spectacular pace.

This is Netanyahu-the-Diplomat’s moment to end the confusing dual-action tactic of sipping West Bank development while blowing two states bubbles from the same rhetorical straw.

Likud, religious Zionists, PA and Hamas are apparently unanimous on this: No one is interested in two states west of the Jordan River. Yet, 4 of their people of all cultures seem to coexist peaceably for mutual benefit without a political theater in the Old City of Jerusalem and these newer West Bank cities. More narrative clarity from Israel might help well-intentioned international allies move on, too.

A visible integration framework could include ending the occupation by suspending military law in the West Bank and applying Israeli civil law across the territories. As the functional integration described here advances, Israel could initiate a process for easing travel restrictions and work quotas for Palestinians between the territories and the rest of Israel.

Palestinian community leaders would have incentives to monitor and preempt security risks, which would be a paramount regulator of the pace and flow of integration for law-abiding Palestinians who would enjoy social mobility in Israel’s labor market. In other words, Palestinians’ individual and leaders’ choices would determine the pace of their access.

Continuing progress on these vectors of integration could deliver fair access to opportunity for all law-abiding inhabitants of the territories, consistent with Jewish religious and cultural principles. It would help to create a virtuous circle of development both within Judea and Samaria and the rest of Israel, consolidating support for the governing coalition within Israel and providing a realistic vision for diplomatic progress for all of Israel’s international allies, including supporting a core diplomatic priority of encouraging Saudi Arabia’s accession to the Abraham Accords circle of peace.

A new vision could be revealed in action, upgrading tentative words of defense. A new transparent narrative for a new process: freer movement and freer access to opportunity for all of Israel’s inhabitants. Ground-level practical integration could also involve community self-governance - always security-dependent - and in due course a constitutional path toward national participation on terms consistent with Israel’s unique status as a Jewish nation.

On the eve of Israel’s 75th anniversary, Netanyahu’s Likud and its partners have finally won the chance to reveal and deliver Israel’s destiny as the Prophet Isaiah’s light unto the nations, a beacon of spiritual and moral virtue for all humanity.

US diplomats drinking Palestinian Kool-Aid

The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

Secretary of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Hussein Al-Sheikh, discussed with the US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr, and his accompanying delegation, today, Thursday, bilateral relations, and political developments and developments in the region, especially after the results of the recent elections and the formation of a government. New Israeli.

Al-Sheikh stressed the need for a political horizon that preserves the two-state solution in accordance with international legitimacy, and for Israel to stop all its unilateral measures and daily attacks against the Palestinian people, which destroy this solution and create a difficult and complex atmosphere that affects security and stability.

And:

Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh briefed the US Special Envoy for Palestinian Affairs, Hady Amr, on the violations and unilateral measures taken by the new extremist Israeli government against the Palestinian people immediately upon assuming power.

The Prime Minister said, upon receiving the US envoy, today, Thursday, in Ramallah, in the presence of the head of the Palestinian Affairs Unit, George Noll, "The US administration is required to move urgently to put an end to the unilateral Israeli measures and threats that undermine the national authority, and systematically end the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state ."

How do we know that the PLO isn't interested in a two state solution - except as a stage on the way of taking over all of Israel?

Because their logo says so.

How do we know that the PA is likewise not interested in a peaceful, two state solution that would end the conflict?

Because they are dominated by Fatah, and Fatah's logo says so:

Every hour of every day, Palestinian officials see this logo that says that Israel must be destroyed by violent means.

Everyone ignores this. Because of wishful thinking, when Palestinian officials say that they are law-abiding, against violence, and want to live peacefully side by side with Israel, US and EU officials swallow it all.

But in Arabic they say that they want the Fatah slogan, "Revolution Until Victory," which is on the signature of every Fatah communication.

The official Fatah party platform says that terror is a legitimate right.

What are the chances that these inconvenient facts are ever mentioned by the smiling diplomats from the US and EU that parade into Ramallah all the time for photo ops?

Exactly zero.

Now ask yourself exactly why this topic is off limits, when it is the core of the reason there is no peace.

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