Due to travel, I don't think I will be able to blog at all today. (If I can, you'll be the first to know!)
Have a great weekend!
When I woke up on Tuesday, I learned about a new chapter in my autobiography: It turns out that in addition to being Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom between 2007-2011, I was also chief speechwriter for senior members of the British Parliament.
While this is very flattering, it is best that we focus on who made this accusation: Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
According to Corbyn, the Jews are in control of the British media. Jews, and hence the Israeli ambassador, force the UK prime minister and other legislators to do their bidding on the public airwaves. The Jews also have a strong grip on the global economy.
Despite saying all this, Corbyn insists that he is not an antisemite. As President Abraham Lincoln once said, you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time.
I met Jeremy Corbyn for the first time in 2008, against the backdrop of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. He was spearheading a demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy in London that was replete with Hamas and Hezbollah flags. He was vocal in his opposition to Israel’s efforts to defend itself, insisting that the rocket attacks on Israeli communities were a result of the “occupation” of the Gaza Strip. He could not be bothered with the fact that thousands of rockets were being fired at Israeli communities, or that Israel had left Gaza several years earlier.
In 2010, as I was about to leave London to become Israel’s envoy to the United Nations, I was impressed by Corbyn’s method of proving he was no antisemite when he compared Israel to the Nazis, and said that Israel’s military blockade against the terrorist entity in Gaza was as bad as Hitler’s siege on Stalingrad.
Several prominent Labour activists who have identified strongly with their party’s embattled leader have hit out at former UK chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks for his fierce criticism of Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday.NGO Monitor: Swedish Gov't Newspaper Invokes Antisemitism and Innuendo to Attack NGO Monitor
Sacks labeled Corbyn “an antisemite” who has backed “racists, terrorists and dealers of hate,” in an interview with the New Statesman, comments which made headlines throughout the UK press.
Following his comments, numerous pro-Corbyn figures began a smear attack on Sacks, seeking to discredit him and his views, due to his highly respected standing within the UK media and political establishment.
Vocal Corbyn supporter and columnist for The Guardian Owen Jones took to Twitter to attack Sacks for having written a blurb praising a book by Right-leaning author Douglas Murray called The Strange Death of Europe Immigration, Identity, Islam, which raises concerns about mass immigration and multicultural policies in Europe.
Jones pointed out that Murray “favorably cites” Enoch Powell, a Conservative politician active in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, who gave a notorious speech in 1968 known as the “Rivers of Blood” speech, where he criticized mass immigration into the UK, and which was castigated as racist and divisive.
Sacks himself, in his criticism of Corbyn, said that the Labour Party’s 2013 speech in which he said “Zionists” in Britain “do not understand English irony” was the worst political speech since Powell’s.
In response to NGO Monitor’s research on government funding for civil society organizations, OmVärlden, an online magazine owned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA, the branch of the government responsible for international development aid), published today twelve (!) articles making numerous false accusations about NGO Monitor. The articles, wholly inappropriate for a government agency consist almost entirely of innuendo, factual inaccuracies, and, most alarming, antisemitic motifs reminiscent of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (spider web, conspiracy theories). The absurdity of the “evidence” for this conspiracy theory reflects the desperation of the actors involved.
These claims are accompanied by statements by activists from Israeli, Palestinian, and Swedish NGOs (including Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, Al-Haq, Hamoked, and Palestinian Solidarity Association of Sweden), all of which have received funding from the Swedish government (SIDA) and have been criticized as a result of NGO Monitor research. The two journalists behind this obsessive series also have clear ideological bias regarding Israel.
The timing of the articles’ publication in a government-owned outlet is noteworthy – nine days before Swedish elections and following a series of articles critical of Swedish aid.
The use of antisemitic imagery by OmVärlden reflects the need for an independent factual review of Sweden’s engagement in the Arab-Israeli conflict through its support to civil society and highlights the importance of NGO Monitor’s critical voice.
Dr. Khalil Hayya, deputy head of the political bureau of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said on Thursday that the intransigence of President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah movement led to the continuation of the suffocating siege on Gaza and the stalemate of the Palestinian reconciliation, pointing to the acceptance of his movement to stop the launch of the fire balloons in exchange fort the lifting of the blockade.Hayya was bitter towards Abbas and the PA, saying that their punitive measures against Gaza are meant to humiliate the people who live there, which is a big insult for Arabs.
Asked if she has come up with a campaign slogan yet, she pulls a scroll of the 1948 declaration from her desk and proceeds to unroll it. “This is the gist of it all,” she says. “Who is for the Declaration of Independence and who is against it? If you’re for it, you’re with us. And I believe that the vast majority of Israelis are for it.”
…the next election (which will take place in 2019) will be about Israel's image for the next 70 years, particularly the basic question of whether Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people or a state of all its citizens, or more precisely – all its ethnicities? Is Israel a Jewish state, the fulfillment of a 2,000-year-old vision, or just another country that lies on the Mediterranean?
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared to put into doubt the Palestinian claims of a “right of return” to land inside the State of Israel, agreeing that the issue should be “off the table.”Is UNRWA a scam?
Speaking at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, she responded to questions, saying, “I absolutely think we have to look at right of return.”
When asked whether the “right of return” applies to Palestinians whose recent ancestors fled Israel during the 1948 War of Independence, Haley said, “I do agree with that, and I think we have to look at this in terms of what’s happening [with refugees] in Syria, what’s happening in Venezuela.”
She confirmed that the United States had cut the budget to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, by more than 82 percent, adding, “We will be a donor if it [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering [with] them.”
UNRWA claims a number of 5 million Palestinian refugees, including in that figure every descendant of Arabs who fled Israel during Israel’s War of Independence. However, international law states that refugee status cannot be passed down to descendants, meaning that only the original 750,000 refugees of 70 years ago can be legally defined as refugees.
Several days ago, Israel’s Hadashot news reported that the Trump administration would officially refute a Palestinian “right of return.” The White House offered no comment.
Why is the US discussing cutting funding to UNWRA? Here are some fast facts, with Emily Schrader. UNHCR covers all refugees in the world EXCEPT Palestinians...and they have 1 staff for every 5,982 refugees. UNRWA, the agency exclusive to the Palestinians, has 1 staff for every 186 refugees. Does that sound proportional to you?
The PLO and Hamas have maintained this discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation system in both Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years.
The failure to close these camps and integrate their residents into the general Gazan and West Bank Arab populations is a damning indictment of Hamas and the PLO.
Expecting Trump to pick up the tab as these inhumane practices continue for crass political purposes is arrogant and unwarranted.
Trump has made it clear these funds will go to relieving genuine refugee distress in other parts of the world.
The PLO’s outright refusal to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s long-awaited peace plan – inflamed by these latest false claims – only ensures the PLO’s increasingly-rapid slide into political irrelevance.
The new Head of the PLO Commission of Prisoners, Qadri Abu Bakr, is in all likelihood the uncle of Mohammed Salameh, one of the terrorists convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Abu Bakr spent 18 years in an Israeli prison for an attempted terror attack before being released in 1986 and expelled to Iraq, where he was a senior PLO representative.
During the year prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Qadri Abu Bakr spoke on the phone with Mohammed Salameh over 40 times. The first to publicize the connection between Salameh and Abu Bakr was the Washington Post in a report published two years after the first WTC bombing documenting a possible Iraqi connection to the bombing:
"Another bit of intriguing evidence leading back to Baghdad are the more than 40 calls Salameh made to the Iraqi capital in June and July 1992 -- most of them to his uncle, Qadri Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr, who had spent 18 years in an Israeli prison, has been identified as a top official of a now largely inactive Iraqi-sponsored Palestinian group."
Professor Laurie Mylroie, in her book Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War against America, documented the Iraqi connection to the World Trade Center bombing, and Abu Bakr's position. Abu Bakr, she explained, was arrested by Israel after he infiltrated from Jordan to carry out a terror attack and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. After serving eighteen years of his sentence he was released and made his way to Iraq. While in Iraq, Mylroie asserts that Abu Bakr was "number two in the PLO's "'Western Sector'... a terrorist unit within the PLO... under Iraq's strong influence."
In looking at who is a Palestinian refugee, there is no definitive response. The definition and the number of Palestinian refugees can differ according to the approach (administrative, juridical, political) used to define Palestinian refugees and also according to the social context of interaction between Palestinians (registered refugees or not) and others and the actors defining them. UNRWA, particularly at the beginning of its mandate, lacked a fixed definition; this changed mainly due to a need to delimit the number of relief recipients. When the Agency began its activities, it inherited a legacy of inflated registration: the United Nations Economic Survey Mission recorded approximately 720,000 people, while the number of recipients on the ration rolls of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees (UNRPR) surpassed 950,000. It is the 1952 definition that has become the accepted one and has remained virtually unchanged: “a Palestine refugee shall mean any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict."UNRWA created the definition of "Palestine refugee," not the UN and not international law. It is an administrative definition, not a legal one. Today, practically zero of the current "Palestine refugees" are refugees; even most of the ones who fled in 1948 would not qualify under the legal definition since they were not fleeing persecution, as their brethren who remained behind prove.
It is important to emphasize that the UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee is an administrative one and does not translate directly into recognition by international law. Furthermore, a tacit understanding seems to prevail: UNRWA’s continued existence (and the associated Palestine refugee status) is directly linked to the realization of a permanent resolution to the Palestine refugee issue.
Former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali: My mentality is a mentality of peace. I believe that peace is the best thing for our nation in its current… or rather, at the time of the peace process, as well as today. It is the best solution for us, as Arabs, and I still believe in it. As long as you do not have force of another kind, peace is your only option.Al Majali is clearly as moderate an Arab as one can imagine - defending Israeli actions on Arab TV is a bit unusual..
[…]
We are interested in five fundamental issues: The land, the water, the economy, the possibility of [Jordan] becoming the alternative Palestine – we are the only ones threatened by this – and security. These are the things Jordan accomplished [in the peace accord with Israel]. What did Jordan want? Its land? It got it back. Jordan wanted its water? We got it back. The economy? We restored it. And on top of all of this, we gained the respect of the world. Am I supposed to liberate Palestine? Is it my job?
Host: Some believe that this accord did not accomplish anything.
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: How can you say that? Didn’t you get your water? Your land?
Host: Israel did not comply with its commitments regarding the water quotas it must give Jordan.
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: That's not true! Absolutely not! Israel continues to give us more water than we are due.
Host: Didn't Israel divert rivers in the area into its [territory]?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Sir, you have not read the history books, I'm sad to say. Israel diverted the Jordan River a long time ago.
Host: And we didn't get it back!
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Our quota does not come from the Jordan River. When the water was divided [in the peace accord], we got our quota from the Yarmouk River. The Jews get 25 million cubic meters, and the rest is ours. But since we don't have a dam to store the winter precipitation, they took the water.
Host: What, they took it, and now it's gone forever?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: No, they have been giving it all back – and more – to us. They have been giving us more than our due. But as for the Palestinian quota – we don't intervene. The Palestinians get their quota from the Jordan River.
Al-Majali: There are millions of Jordanian Palestinians who have property in Israel. They have the right to get it back or get compensation for it.The host says what most Arabs think - that all of Israel is "occupied" and that compensating Palestinians for any property they fled from would be disastrous for their "cause" - the cause of destroying Israel.
Host: They will only get compensation?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: I'm not getting into this. It's return or compensation: They will either give them back their land or compensate them. Some people go and collect… in Haifa, Jaffa, and elsewhere beyond the West Bank.
Host: Does this serve the Palestinian cause?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Why not?
Host: What, to sell their land for a price?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: [The Israelis] own that land. They live and build there, while you are not there, and you don't have an army or anything…
Host: In my view, if they don't sell it and the land remains occupied, it is better for the Palestinian cause.
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Is it better for them to remain hungry?
Host: And selling their land is better?
Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Well, what can you do? You lost the land to a military force. You do not have any power. All you do is talk. The Arabs do not have any power. If we ever have military power, will we let them keep Haifa? We'll take it. If tomorrow, we become stronger and can take Haifa by force, will we really decline just because we have an agreement with them?
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday said he believed a future Palestinian state should be demilitarized, offering rare backing for a key Israeli demand in any peace deal.In what must be a complete coincidence, the Facebook page of Fatah, which is run by Abbas, just put up this photo:
Abbas told a group of visiting Israeli academics that he preferred devoting funds to education and institutions than to an army, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the city was defended by the Iraqi Army, then captured briefly by the forces from Israel's Carmeli Brigade during the "Ten Days' fighting" following the cancellation of the first cease-fire. Prior to the battle, the city's residents fled temporarily.The offensive was actually a feint designed to draw Arab forces away from the critical Siege of Jerusalem, and gains in that sector were quickly abandoned when Arab reinforcements arrived.Even their victories are not victories.
Palestinian leaders are betting their future on President Donald Trump being impeached by Democrats following the mid-term elections, according to Arabic language comments by a senior Palestinian government leader who praised Special Counsel Robert Mueller for targeting Trump and his top allies.
Palestinian government leaders, under pressure from the Trump administration as it slashes U.S. taxpayer aid to the embattled government, say they are betting on a Democratic takeover in Congress that will stall the administration's agenda and put the still languishing peace process on the back burner.
Muhammad Shtaya, a member of the Fatah government's Central Committee, said regional officials are counting on Democrats winning the midterms and seizing control of Congress, a scenario the Palestinians believe would work in their favor as the Trump administration pursues efforts to isolate regional governments for their support of terrorism.
The comments come amid a new push in Congress and the Trump administration to slash U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinian government as a result of it spending this money to pay the salaries of terrorists and their families. Parallel efforts in the United States also seek to redefine how Palestinian refugees are classified, a move that would change the calculus on peace talks.
Shtaya said in Arabic language comments that many are waiting with anticipation for Democrats to win the midterm elections.
November "is the midterm elections for Congress and the Senate," Shtaya said, according to an independent translation of his remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon. "If the Democrats seize the majority in Congress and the Senate, I believe we will arrive at two results: First, the first result, a total paralysis of the Trump administration, as he will not be able to pass any bills in Congress. And second, and he spoke about this the other day, and he is the first American president to say, if I'm impeached, the world markets will collapse and everyone will pay a price for it."
The ongoing Mueller investigation also has provided a lifeline to Palestinian leaders who are hopeful it will erode Trump's presidency.
The survey brought below dates back to 2015 - and the Palestinian condition has improved since then, despite the propaganda lies to the contrary. You will find it amazing.NGO Monitor: French Funded Propaganda Film Exploits Palestinian Youth
Happiness - Palestinians are 3rd happiest in all Arab countries, and 30th globally.
Water Resources - Despite claims to the contrary, Palestinian per capita use of natural, fresh water is 140 cubic meters per annum against Israel's 150 cubic meters per annum. Almost the same.
Education - Palestinians were 63.5% satisfied as opposed to 50% average among Arab states. Netherlands 60.3%, Sweden 61.6%, Japan 54.5%.
Literacy - Literacy rate of Palestinians aged 15+ was 96.5%
Infant Mortality - Palestinian infant mortality stood at 13 per 1000 live births compared with 27 per 1000 in Arab states, and 36.58% global average.
Life Expectancy - Palestinian age 76, Arab states 71, Global average 70.
Poverty - West Bank 18%. Israel 21%.
In August 2018, the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine (PFP), a French funded anti-Israeli NGO,1 published a documentary titled “No Kidding, Games under control.” The video, which was made “available for free access,” was produced in 2010 with the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Agency for Development (AFD).
The producers describe the film as “an assessment of Palestinian children’s rights, in particular, under the situation of the Israeli occupation.” The half-hour film features seven children and teenagers supposedly “chosen at random” from Gaza and the West Bank. According to PFP, the young interviewees “describe the Israeli military operations, the Wall, the settlements … they testify of the effects of the occupation on their daily life.”
The film systematically erases any notion of Israeli security concerns, including the context of violence and terrorism, and instead disseminates multiple unverified claims. The producers themselves state that the film is “slanted” in order to “let the children, without frame or constraint” tell their stories. As a result, the film whitewashes terror, promotes the demonization of Israel, and manipulates and exploits Palestinian children for political gain.
Demolition of Ganei Tal, Gush Katif |
Jews have a moral obligation to the Jews exclusively. As for the rest of the human race, the so-called "goyim" or "illiterate" in the language of the Torah, they have no moral responsibility for them, according to the teachings of the Talmud; In other words, the behavior of Jews toward others is dictated by selfish interest, which is devoid of any pretense or morality. For this benefit, Jews are not deterred from false representation and false pretenses.J-Street and the British Labour Party probably consider this to be all legitimate criticism of Israel.
This reality has governed the behavior of the Zionist movement and its state since the beginning. The Palestinians and the Arabs have always tried to expose the immoral nature of Zionism and Israel. However, they have always failed, because the Zionists have mastered the arts of lies and forgery supported by their overwhelming political influence in the West and their wide control over the international media. They succeeded in persuading a large part of the international community and world public opinion In the Israeli narrative, including the fact that Israel is an oasis of democracy in the desert of Arab tyranny, and that the Palestinians suffer from their own hands for their behavior, .rather than ways of peace.
On the basis of that anti-moral Talmudic culture, Israel has succeeded in joining the United Nations, having succeeded in convincing the majority of its Member States that it is a peace-loving State...
And the U.N. itself should stop funding schools where the core curriculum is focused on teaching Palestinian children hatred of Jews and their state – along with training in hand-to-hand combat, firing guns, kidnapping and sending kites and large balloons into Israel carrying bombs.PMW: Hamas fighters torture 13-year Adham, because he hit son of Hamas military leader
With this kind of indoctrination going to children from the elementary school years onward, it’s no wonder that the fires of hatred against Jews and Israel burn in Palestinian hearts.
If I had the opportunity to see Guterres again, I would tell him this:
Mr. Secretary-General, Palestinians don’t need 14-page reports with action plans to “protect” them from Israel. They need you to summon up the courage to tell the truth.
Want peace? Get rid of the terrorists; stop brainwashing children into a culture of death; tell Mahmoud Abbas to start acting like a president who wants peace and not war; stop treating terrorists like rock stars; and stop rewarding murderers.
In the extraordinary unlikely event that Guterres made such a declaration, there could be hope that both Palestinian and Jewish children may actually have a peaceful future.
But sadly, the chances of the U.N. coming out for steps like this anytime soon are almost nonexistent. We can only pray and hope that at some point – with the help of strong leadership from the United States – the U.N. and more of its member states will come out for a just and equitable peace that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side in peace and security.
In a rare broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy and his parents openly criticized Hamas. They described how six Hamas fighters in Gaza beat and tortured the 13-year-old - simply because he had fought and hit the son of a commander from Hamas' military wing Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam.
Crying while he showed pictured of the many wounds on his body, the boy told how six Hamas fighters beat him up and tortured him in a room in a mosque:
13-year-old boy Muhammad Adham Abu Anzah: "They grabbed me and put me in a room. Then they started to hit me with daggers and a whip. He broke my finger. I demand justice. When one finished or tired out, another came and continued to hit me with a belt. They broke iron on my neck. Six people - they continued to hit me until the police came. Afterwards, the police arrested me. Later, my father came and started to shout at them, and then they released me." [Official PA TV News, Aug. 22, 2018]
The boy's father stated that the attackers are known to the family, adding that this is how Hamas treats anyone who voices criticism:
To a degree, this isn’t surprising. EU member states have only been able to coalesce around one common foreign policy: hostility to Israel.
Only last week, the EU issued an angry condemnation of Israel for announcing it was issuing permits for 382 new homes in its communities in Judea. The EU and European member states invest in excess of $125 million annually to support networks of anti-Israel NGOs in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Europe. These NGOs delegitimize Israel’s right to exist, support economic boycotts of Israel, work to turn Israel’s Arab citizens against their state, and support Palestinian terror groups. At the UN, there are few anti-Israel initiatives that do not pass with European support.
Since the OPEC oil embargo in 1974, Western European countries have used their hostility towards Israel as a means to distinguish themselves from the U.S. It costs them nothing, since Israel is at a trade disadvantage with Europe. And it appeals to the antisemitic and anti-American sentiments held by a large percentage of Europeans.
Just two few days before Maas wrote his article calling for the EU to develop a new financial network to undermine U.S. sanctions and keep trading with Iran (and so enable the regime to survive, continue sponsoring terrorism and waging war while developing nuclear weapons), he visited the German death camp Auschwitz. While at the site of the largest death factory in human history, he said, “We need this place because our responsibility never ends.”
How odd, given the German government’s decision to pin its independence on its ability to help Iran’s regime overcome U.S. sanctions and develop the means to annihilate Israel and murder the six-and-a-half million Jews that live there.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!