Friday, June 05, 2015

06/05 Links Pt2: When will the free world realize Churchill was right?; Rabbi Obama's tough love

From Ian:
Mordechai Kedar: It's not about Soccer, Stupid. It's about Israel's Survival
Let's tell the truth: the Palestine Liberation Organizaion established in June 2, 1964, three years before the "occupation", was meant to free the "Palestine" that existed then, meaning Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nahariya and Be'er Sheva and not Hevron, Shechem and Ramallah that were under Jordanian "occupation" at the time. The organization has not changed its charter as of today, nor has it changed its goal and its suggested Final Solution for the Jewish People all over the world. This was the credo of its founder, he who established the great Palestinian Nation Lie, none other than Haj Amin El-Husseini, who took an active part in the extermination of half a million Hungarian Jews in 1944.
Mahmoud Abbas, Jibril Rajoub and their fellow-murderers share Husseini's dreams and are trying to achieve his goals without being obvious about it, so as not to wake us up. We are asleep and they are leading us towards extermination, along international corridors, by way of the courtroom - and through FIFA. According to the Palestine Liberation Organization, all these interantional bodies are gas molecules that will strangle Israel, causing its certain death as soon as they reach the required concentration. All they have to do is open the anesthesia pipeline of "security coordination" to keep us from seeing the fatal gas they are gathering all around us.
This is not about soccer. This is about our existence in Israel, from Tel Aviv to Ariel, from Haifa to Kiryat Arba, from Be'er Sheva to Maaleh Adumim. The Palestine - all of Palestine - Liberation Organization does not want us here and it is time to tell the truth: those Accords we signed with them in 1993 were a strategic error and a fatal step for the Jewish State that followed Arafat as though he was the pied piper of Hamelin and they were a buinch of naive children - fated to be left in a cave with no way out.
It is time to send the Palestine Liberation Organization to hell in a handbasket before it becomes another Hamas state, which is can do by holding elections as in January 2006, or through a violent takeover which is what happened in Gaza in 2007. Is anyone able to promise that this won't happen in Judea and Samaria? Since no one in the world can assure us that this most realistic scenario will not take place, we must take that vital step, and every passing day makes it harder to do that most necessary thing. If not now, when? When should we do it? Should we wait until Hamas takes over and establishes a terror state in Judea and Samaria? As they are busy doing in Gaza?
Our thanks to Jibril Rajouib, the convicted terrorist who showed us the truth, as if we really needed to be told.
Ben-Dror Yemini: When will the free world realize Churchill was right?
The intellectual elites are returning to the exact same spot these days. Organizations of students and lecturers, as well as the Orange CEO, are milestones in this disgraceful path. Arguments can be made against Israel. Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements and Israel's policy are worthy of profound criticism. But Israel is a democracy. There is a fundamental debate taking place here. The anti-Israel campaign is not contributing to the reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. It is increasing the hostility and the hatred.
The Orange CEO wouldn't have expressed support for the boycott if it wasn’t for the atmosphere created by the propaganda of lies. It is an atmosphere and disease which is not only threatening Britain, but the entire free world. Another prestigious academic institution, the London School of Economics (LSE), decided to twin its union with the Islamic University of Gaza of all universities, although some of the university's leaders have made it clear that the annihilation of Jews is a command for immediate implementation.
The evil spirit of BDS is not only threatening Israel. It is wreaking havoc in the United States and Britain. It is threatening the free world. It is encouraging Palestinian terror and Palestinian rejectionism. The Orange CEO's declaration is another milestone in the disgraceful parade.
Churchill realized it at the time, and was concerned that this disgrace would only bring the war closer. Eight-two years have passed, and the free world is refusing to realize that Churchill was right.
The FIFA fiasco: What woeful wimps
Israel’s response to the Palestinian initiative to suspend it from FIFA epitomized everything that is wrong with its public diplomacy.
Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote: “Clearly, within the context of conventional wisdom… the contention that Israel’s acceptance of the legitimacy of Palestinian national claims has laid the foundations for the international assault on its own legitimacy seems, at best, counterintuitive. However, the logic behind it is unassailable and the conclusion to be drawn from it inexorable: Once the legitimacy of a Palestinian state is conceded, the delegitimization of Israel is inevitable.”
The chain of reasoning is clear and compelling – almost algorithmic. For the Zionist narrative to be re-legitimized, the Palestinian narrative must be delegitimized. For Israel to regain its legitimacy, “Palestine” must be stripped of its legitimacy. For as Nahum Barnea correctly diagnoses: “the Palestinians are not only challenging the occupation, but Israel’s actual existence.”
Unless this is grasped and acted on, even billionaires will be of no avail.

  • Friday, June 05, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

This week's Shujaiyeh rubble photos

I wrote earlier this week that Gaza's Shujaiyeh neighborhood is being kept filled with rubble - and its residents kept homeless - because of the propaganda value of having foreign dignitaries and journalists go through the neighborhood and seeing the destruction. even though tens of thousands of families have been fully supplied with construction materials to rebuild, seemingly no one in Shujaiyeh is rebuilding, and nine months after the war the rubble is still in place - despite the fact that rubble is worth money for entrepreneurs who can recycle it.

It is clear that this neighborhood is being kept as a monument to supposed Israeli crimes.

This is not the first time Arabs have made people homeless for propaganda points. The Syrian town of Quneitra is described by Wikipedia:
The city remains in a destroyed condition. Syria has left the ruins in place and built a museum to memorialize its destruction. It maintains billboards at the ruins of many buildings and effectively preserves it in the condition that the Israeli army left it in. The former residents of the town have not returned and Syria discourages the re-population of the area.
All that is missing from Shujaiyeh is the museum.

Here are this week's photos of a neighborhood that could have started clearing rubble and rebuilding last September:







Staged pictures in a large stage.

  • Friday, June 05, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

Turns out parts of Gaza's Shujaiyeh ARE being rebuilt - underground

From AFP:
A member of the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas died Friday when a smuggling tunnel collapsed in the Gaza Strip near the Israeli border, Hamas and medical sources said.

The sources did not say why the tunnel, located in eastern Shejaiya in northern Gaza, collapsed.

A statement from Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of de facto Gaza rulers Hamas, said a member was killed in the collapse of "a resistance tunnel".

Hamas has created a network of underground tunnels that enable the movement of arms and fighters throughout the coastal Palestinian territory. Some extend into Israel, and were used to carry out attacks during the July-August 2014 war with the Jewish state.

Shujaiyeh? Isn't that the place that Gaza leaders parade reporters and diplomats around to prove that Gazans haven't rebuilt their homes?

Clearly there is some rebuilding going on!

Now, if you want to build underground bunkers and tunnels, wouldn't it be so much easier to do it before the reconstruction takes place above ground?

It is obvious that Hamas uses the neighborhood as a hub of operations, which is the entire reason it was a major target for the IDF. But now it serves an additional purpose of being a propaganda tool.

This is yet another one of those connections that reporters are paid to notice, but instead they go out of their way to ignore them. Hamas building terror bunkers and kidnap tunnels directly beneath the rubble-strewn neighborhood that they love to photograph as evidence of Israeli atrocities just doesn't register as relevant to their lazy "narrative."

Notice how AFP calls these "smuggling tunnels." Even Hamas doesn't claim it is used for smuggling, but for terror. (No one is smuggling any items from Israel.)

The Al Qassam Brigades website says that he was working in "tunnels of pride and dignity to be stationed at the mouths of the homeland" - which sure sounds like this tunnel was meant to go to Israel.

Anyway...time to hand out the candy.

(More in my next post.)

06/05 Links Pt1: New government’s war on BDS; EU-Funded NGOs Behind the Orange BDS Campaign

From Ian:
Caroline Glick: The new government’s war on BDS
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is less than a month old, but it’s already apparent that it is different from its predecessors. And if it continues on its current diplomatic trajectory, it may do something that its six predecessors failed to accomplish. Netanyahu’s new government may improve Israel’s position internationally.
The stakes are high. Over the years, Israel has largely concentrated its efforts on developing the tools to contend with its military challenges. But as we have seen over the past decade and a half, Israel’s capacity to fight and defeat its enemies is not limited principally by the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities.
Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens is constrained first and foremost by its shrinking capacity to defend itself diplomatically. Its enemies in the diplomatic arena have met with great success in their use of diplomatic condemnation and intimidation to force Israel to limit its military operations to the point where it is incapable of defeating its enemies outright.
The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Participants in the movement propagate and disseminate the libelous claim that Israel’s use of force in self-defense is inherently immoral and illegal. Over the years BDS activists’ assaults on Israel’s right to exist have become ever more shrill and radical. So, too, whereas just a few years ago their operations tended to be concentrated around military confrontations, today they are everyday occurrences. And their demands become greater and more openly anti-Semitic from week to week and day to day.
Consider the events of the past seven days alone.
Sarah Honig: The great equalizer of all Jews
Last summer a café in a suburb of the Belgian city of Liege exposed the current face of anti-Semitism in one compact store-front display.
The window was festooned with the Palestinian flag, decorated with Fatah keffiahs and featured an Israeli flag crossed-out with a big red “X.” But if just-landed Martians failed to get the message, there was written bilingual elucidation as well.
The French version, for the benefit of the natives, boldly announced: “Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Zionists under any circumstances!”
Nonetheless, politically correct constraints in French clearly don’t cramp Turkish styles. Lest any perplexed Turk encounter difficulties in determining who’s a Zionist, the Turkish sign spelled things out explicitly – without synthetic attempts at European niceties. It let the proverbial cat out of the bag for dog-lovers and haters- of-Zion alike: “Entry is permitted to dogs but not to Jews under any circumstances!”
The bit about Zionists was exclusively for European consumption. Ever since the end of WWII, undisguised anti-Jewish harangues have lost their erstwhile luster in much of the continent. Anti-Israel and anti-Zionist discourse, however, provides socially acceptable alternatives. Nowadays, in fact, these substitutes have become the obligatory fad for the fashion-conscious.
Careless about prevalent conventions, though, the Turkish café-owners clearly illustrated that the terminology can be used interchangeably. If anything, anti-Zionist and anti-Jew are synonyms, despite expedient denials by disingenuous Europeans and Arab propagandists.
In very rare public meet, Israeli, Saudi officials name Iran as common foe
An extremely unusual public meeting of high-ranking Israeli and Saudi officials took place in Washington on Thursday, when the incoming director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry shared a stage — and shook hands — with a retired Saudi general who is a former top adviser to the Saudi government.
In their back-to-back addresses to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Dore Gold and Anwar Eshki both espoused Israeli-Saudi peace and identified Iran as the chief threat to regional stability.
Eshki spoke at length of Iran’s hostile and aggressive actions in the region and signaled that peace with Israel, based on the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative, was a top priority. He also spoke of the need for a joint Arab military force to increase regional stability.
Gold, the current head of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank, is expected to be confirmed as the Foreign Ministry chief in the coming days. He too spoke of the challenge posed to the Middle East by Iran, and warned of a weak nuclear accord with Tehran which would leave the Islamic republic as a nuclear threshold state.
Bloomberg News reported that the two countries, longtime foes with no diplomatic relations, have held five clandestine meetings over the past 17 months on the threat posed by Iran. Long-rumored back-channel talks between Jerusalem and Riyadh have never been officially confirmed. (h/t Phil)

  • Friday, June 05, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

Palestinian Authority lying statistics (update)

I had missed this from last month:

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday it has recorded a population of 12.1 million people, of whom 4.6 million live in the occupied territories and the remainder abroad.

In a statement, the head of the statistics bureau said that in 1948, "1.4 million Palestinians lived in 1,300 towns and localities in historic Palestine".

After the war that followed Israel's creation, "Israel took control of 774 towns and villages, destroyed 531 and committed 70 killings and massacres in which 15,000 people died", she said.
I can only find one source that claims 15,000 Arab casualties of the war, from a 1995 World Political Almanac quoted in a Wikipedia article. I have no idea if it is referenced correctly.  (UPDATE: Apparently this is accurate according to the World Political Almanac, but I don't know their source.)

Most histories of the War of Independence show perhaps 7,000- 10,000 total Arab losses. Benny Morris quotes the antismeitic known liar, the Mufti of Jerusalem, as claiming that about 12,000 Palestinian Arabs had died.

In short, there is no known reliable source for this statistic, which the PCBS has been pushing for years.

While the PCBS doesn't claim explicitly that Jews massacred 15,000 people, it is broadly implied here, and not mentioning that there was, you know, a war of attempted extermination of Israel. A war that incidentally killed over 6,000 Jews, some 5% of all men, women and children in Israel.

If the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics lies about statistics in 1948, then how reliable is it in reporting statistics today?


  • Friday, June 05, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

French ambassador to US beautifully smacked down on Twitter over "occupation" (UPDATE)


Yesterday, France's ambassador to the US Gérard Araud tweeted this:




This is the sort of thing that is simply accepted as fact by most of the world who has never actually read the Geneva Conventions.

Expert in international law Eugene Kontorovich replied with a withering series of tweets that showed that this diplomat (and most other diplomats, pundits and so-called "experts") is completely and thoroughly wrong - using examples from French companies doing business in, yes, occupied territories:

























After thoroughly proving that the French ambassador is a hypocrite, Gérard Araud blocked Eugene.

And then he put up this pathetic defense:



Kontorovich's words in response, that he wrote in an excellent blogpost at the Washington Post:

In other words, no fairs to cite precedents and practice. But of course, if you are talking about international law, “other territories” are entirely relevant. First, for something to be law, it has to be a rule that applies to similar situations. And for it to be international, well, those situations will involve different countries.What the French apparently want is, to paraphrase Stalin, international law for one country. Ok. But don’t call it international. And don’t call it law.
The entire article is a must-read.

Kontorovich proved that the French ambassador is a know-nothing hypocrite, and Araud proved that he has no interest in truth.  Not bad for a Twitter exchange.

UPDATE: Gerard Araud also blocked me on Twitter after I tweeted this single article to him.

Thursday, June 04, 2015

06/04 Links Pt2: One million to mark anniversary of three teens’ killing as Unity Day

From Ian:
Turkey's Flotilla: What Was It Really About?
One day, perhaps, the Palestinians will understand that their "cause" is, for their Turkish brothers, merely an ideological feel-good motive and an instrument in the quest of many Turks to consolidate power both at home and in the Arab world.
Ironically, about a week before the Mavi Marmara commemoration, hysteria gripped Turkey: a World Bank report revealed that the Turkish government had failed to deliver a large portion of the aid it had pledged for the reconstruction of Gaza during an international donors' conference last year.
The report said that Turkey has so far delivered only 0.26% of the aid it had pledged at the donors' conference in Cairo last October. Turkey, which pledged $200 million, has provided only $520,000 the report said.
Turkey's unofficial aid for Gaza did not reflect the Palestinian-fetish visible across the country, either. All that 77 million Turks could collect to donate to Gaza stood at $32 million, or about 40 cents per person. In other words, the Turkish generosity for "our Palestinian brothers" was a mere 0.004% of the country's national income.
"This is a clear picture showing the AK Party's true colors. They turn Gaza into a political pawn and exploit it, then fail to honor the pledge ... It's tragic. How could you not honor your promise to Gaza?" asked Mehmet Gunal, an opposition member of parliament.
Turks love to play the generous benefactor of the Palestinians and the custodians of the Palestinian cause. Underneath, its "pro- Palestinian" mindset, Turkish solidarity with the Palestinians is less related to the Palestinian cause and more to the Islamists' devotion to the dream of "conquest."
Exploding for decades: UNRWA needs more, more, more
As sixty-five year olds go, UNRWA shows no real signs of slowing down. That's noteworthy when we remind ourselves that its supposed purpose in life, as expressed in UN Resolution A/RES/302 (IV) of December 8, 1949, is
relief of the Palestine refugees... to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief...
Termination is, 65 years later, nowhere in sight. UNRWA today is the UN's single largest agency. It employs a staff of more than 30,000, of whom 99% are locally recruited Palestinians [Wikipedia].
It's not the United Nations' only refugee agency, as most people know. By far the more significant one is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a body which merely deals with all the world's refugees. By contrast, UNRWA supports one class of refugees only:
Palestine refugees... defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict
Amazing really. If you had lived there for two years, you were entitled to UNRWA support, and so are your children, and their great-great-great grandchildren. The UN defined Palestine refugee status to be something you inherited... forever. And that's just one of a long list of criticisms that
But our focus in this post is money.
One million to mark anniversary of three teens’ killing as Unity Day
The first anniversary of the deaths of Naftali Fraenkel, Gil-ad Shaer and Eyal Yifrach, the Israeli teenagers kidnapped and killed by Palestinian terrorists last summer, is being marked on Wednesday with a Unity Day.
A million individuals throughout Israel and in Jewish communities in 20 different countries are expected to participate in unity-themed gatherings and educational programs. A conference on issues that emerged from the events of the summer of 2014 will take place in Jerusalem, and the first annual Jerusale`m Unity Prize will be awarded to individuals and organizations identified as leaders in promoting Jewish unity in Israel or in strengthening Israel-Diaspora ties.
A year ago, Jews in Israel and around the world came together in solidarity as they hoped and prayed that Fraenkel, Shaer and Yifrach would be found alive. In the end, the boys — murdered almost immediately by their abductors — did not come home.
The sense of unity, however, did not end. The bereaved families were comforted by people from all walks of life, from different religious outlooks, and from all over the political spectrum.
That togetherness, the putting aside of differences, did not go unnoticed by the teens’ parents. They decided that Jewish unity would be their sons’ legacy, and that they would dedicate themselves to raising awareness of the importance of unity every day, and not only during times of crisis and conflict with the nation’s enemies.

  • Thursday, June 04, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

Pravda says Israel nuked Yemen

From Pravda, May 29:

Saudis have begun to wipe Yemen off the map. Tactical strikes have hit the city.

Shocking video reveals proton bombardment from a neutron bomb.

Israel is reported to be the one to deploy such neutron bombs.

Any doubts about the nuclear attack on Yemen attributed to Israel, as evidenced in two Israeli F16s shot down and forensically identified, are now gone.

Forbidden strikes have brought about a storm of worldwide protest.

Obama has recently promised to provide every assistance including US military force to any "external threat" the rich Arab states of the Gulf may face.
The source for the Israeli F-16 story is Veteran's Today, which in turn uses Pravda to prove the Israeli nuke story. VT says it is "hard fact that has been 100% confirmed."

That settles it!

Further evidence is that "there has thus far been zero denial or refutation (other than by wingnuts and conspiracy theorists) of this having been a nuclear event." Also, some spark-like dots in the video is brought as evidence of nuclear radiation, and "when the camera’s CCD pick up chip is overloaded by excess radiation it will pixelize showing white sparkles all over the picture of the fireball or blast image area." (Interestingly, CCDs can be hacked to see radiation, but the dots indicating radiation are randomly distributed throughout the CCD, not in the pattern that these clowns claim.)

Here's the full video that supposedly proves a nuclear bomb hit Yemen. It looks like a ammo depot, or perhaps a fuel storage facility.



There are many people who believe this stuff.  The story has traveled through the insanity axis of Russian, American fringe and Iranian websites. The video has well over 600,000 views.


(h/t Aryeh)

Obama’s ABC for ending the Jewish state (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

This past week Barack Obama laid bare the pincer maneuver he is executing against Israel. As he explained it in an interview with Ilana Dayan on Israeli TV, he intends to squeeze Israel between a nuclear Iran and a terrorist base next door to Tel Aviv.

The precise nature of the Iranian threat is important for understanding Obama’s strategy. Although one can’t completely discount the possibility, Iranian officials have been relatively honest when they say that they don’t intend to nuke us: they would prefer to see us wiped off the map conventionally by their non-state proxies. The bomb will primarily be used to threaten the Sunni states and as a deterrent against Israel’s option to (in the words of the previous Saudi king), cut off the head of the Iranian snake.

Thus, a) providing Iran with its nuclear backstop, while b) empowering the PLO and Hamas, and c) increasing Israel’s vulnerability to terrorism and conventional attack by reducing its strategic depth, is the perfect three-point strategy for finally achieving the goal that Yasser Arafat dedicated his life to, ending the Jewish state.

Obama told Dayan that Israel is behaving immorally in its actions toward the Palestinian Arabs, that he sees it as his personal duty to change this, that PM Netanyahu’s negotiating positions are unrealistic and disingenuous, and that he intends to change the traditional American position: the US will no longer insist on a bilateral agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but will support a UN-imposed Palestinian state.

It is interesting that the Palestinian issue is so important to him, that he feels the need to help Palestinian children so deeply, when (for example) there is ongoing rape, abuse and murder of children on a massive scale in much of Africa.

It is interesting that he can brush aside Netanyahu’s reasonable conditions — for security and the need for a commitment to end the conflict — but that maximalist Palestinian demands are treated as non-negotiable.

And his remarks about the Iran deal are interesting too. For the first time, he admits that the military option is off the table:
I can, I think, demonstrate — not based on any hope, but on facts and evidence and analysis — that the best way to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon is a verifiable, tough agreement.  A military solution will not fix it, even if the United States participates. It would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program, but it will not eliminate it.
So much for leverage! The deal that he is making is apparently neither tough nor verifiable, as the French Foreign Minister has recently noted, not to mention Israel’s PM. It won’t stop Iran or even slow her progress very much. What it will do is to criminalize an Israeli attack while ending sanctions and freeing up tens of billions of frozen Iranian dollars to fund its aggression.

While military action won’t rule out the possibility that some day Iran could reconstruct its program, there are persuasive arguments that it could delay it for a good long time — and who knows what might happen in the interim?

Obama isn’t prepared to take that chance. His alliance with the expanding Shiite caliphate is too important, which is also why he made a joke of American red lines to protect Iranian lackey Bashar al-Assad.

While he will do whatever it takes to help the “Palestinian youth in Ramallah who feels [his] possibilities constrained by the status quo,” he is able to abandon the Syrian child choking his chlorine-gas filled lungs out, or even the barrel-bombed Palestinians in Yarmouk.

But if it isn’t children and it isn’t Palestinians, it isn’t Shiites either. After all, he is still miffed at Abdel Fattah el-Sisi for overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. Now what could the Ikhwan possibly have in common with the Iranian mullahs? Not much, except the desire to destroy Israel.

The enemy of Obama’s enemy is his friend, and he seems determined to make friends of all of Israel’s enemies, even if they turn out, like Iran and the Brotherhood, to be deadly enemies of the United States too.

Irrational? Perhaps, but not surprising. It’s the same irrational current that drives academics and liberal church groups to say “you have to start somewhere” when asked why, with all of the real oppression and occupation in the world, they choose Israel to boycott. It’s the same force that caused Hitler to divert Reichsbahn trains to carry Jews to death camps instead of supplies to his beleaguered troops at Stalingrad.

In another recent interview, Obama made the silly and ahistorical statement that antisemitism doesn’t cause national leaders to make irrational decisions when stakes are high.

Clearly untrue. But maybe the truth would have hit too close to home?

06/04 Links Pt1: Abbas awards terrorist with "Star of Honor"; After rocket fire, IAF strikes Gaza

From Ian:
Khaled Abu Toameh: Who Is Blocking Palestinian Elections?
Today, it has become unavoidably clear that Fatah and Hamas, and not Israel, are responsible for the ongoing plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The two parties are unlikely to resolve their differences in the near future, further exacerbating the misery of their people. Each party cares only about its own interests, while at the same time lying to the world that it is all Israel's fault. Hamas is not willing to relinquish control over the Gaza Strip, certainly not to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were expelled from there in 2007. As for Abbas, he does not seem to be interested in regaining control over a problematic area such as the Gaza Strip, where most of the population lives under the poverty line and in refugee camps.
Yet instead of being honest with their people and admitting their failure to improve their people's living conditions, Hamas and Fatah continue to wage smear campaigns against each other and, at the same time, also against Israel.
The campaigns that Hamas and Fatah are waging against Israel, particularly in the international community, are designed to divert attention from their failure to provide their people with basic services or any kind of hope.
While ignoring the plight of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority leaders were prepared to invest huge efforts and resources in trying to have Israel suspended from the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA). It is as if the Palestinians had solved all their major problems and all that they needed to do now was to stop Israeli soccer players from playing in international matches.
Hamas, for its part, continues to invest enormous resources in digging new tunnels, in preparation for another war with Israel. The money that is being invested in the tunnels and the purchase and smuggling of weapons could benefit many families who lost their homes during the last war. But Hamas, like the Palestinian Authority, does not care about the misery of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. They want to fight Israel to the last Palestinian. And this is all being done with the help of anti-Israel governments around the world, and groups such the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose only goal is to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews rather than to help the Palestinians.
PA President Abbas to Run for Second Infinite-Year Term (satire)
In a press conference held in Ramallah Monday, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority now in the 11th year of a four-year term, announced that he will seek re-election when his current term ends in infinity years.
“The last 11 years have been a time of tremendous economic growth and prosperity for the Palestinian people. Well, at least for one Palestinian person,” he said, pointing to himself. “I am looking forward to serving out the rest of my never-ending term and hope the Palestinian people will reward me with another never-ending term.”
Abbas said he was eager to tackle a new set of challenges in his second term, including global warming, the rise and eventual fall of China and the potential fallout of the Y3K crisis. He added that he was excited to work with President Hillary Clinton, President Chelsea Clinton and, eventually, President Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky on sporadic and fruitless negotiations towards a two-state solution.
Palestinians throughout the West Bank were thrilled by Abbas’ announcement.
 PMW: Abbas awards terrorist with "Star of Honor"

Last week, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas awarded terrorist Fatima Barnawi with the "Military Star of Honor." Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 in an attempt to murder civilians. The bomb was discovered and Barnawi spent 10 years in Israeli prison.
Official PA TV News reported on the ceremony at which Abbas himself presented terrorist Barnawi with the honor. Tayeb Abdel Rahim, Secretary General of the Presidency, read aloud the Abbas' Presidential Decree in honor of the terrorist:
"Decree for 2015. The President of the State of Palestine and acting Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee; by the authority vested in us, and for the public good; we decree the following:
Paragraph 1: Fighter Fatima Barnawi - the first female prisoner of the revolution of modern Palestine - is granted the Award of Military Star of Honor.
Paragraph 2: In appreciation for her pioneering role in the struggle,her sacrifice for her homeland and her people, and its revolution, and her willingness to give from the beginning until now..."[Official PA TV, May 28, 2015]


Terrorist about her failed bomb attack: "It is not a failure because it generated fear"
PA TV host: ‎"That is certainly not a failure. It is a success for the Palestinian ‎resistance that went into the heart of the Israeli occupation, into the cinema and ‎created a state of panic, because [since then] they’ve taken extra precautions when ‎each person enters a cinema or any public place. " ‎[Official PA TV, May 9, 2015]‎

Fatima Barnawi placed a bomb in a movie theater in Jerusalem in 1967 in an attempt to ‎blow it up. The bomb failed to explode. She was sentenced to life imprisonment but ‎was released in 1977 after serving 10 years. In 2015, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas ‎honored Barnawi with the Military Star of Honor.‎


  • Thursday, June 04, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

PA threatens to dismantle itself. For the eighth time.



From TOI:
The Palestinian Authority will dissolve itself if a peace agreement with Israel resulting in two states is not reached by the end of this year, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said on Tuesday.

Speaking on a panel in Jerusalem titled “Time for international legitimacy,” organized by the Palestine-Israel Journal, Erekat said that a committee established by the PLO Central Council in its last meeting in March decided to place an ultimatum before Israel as a last resort.
Deja vu, anyone?

April 2014:
The era of the two-state solution may soon be rocked by a decision that could signal its demise. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is mulling the merits of a proposal to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday morning.

Palestinian sources confirm that the government in Ramallah was considering the unprecedented move. Senior sources in the IDF's Central Command, who recently met with the heads of the Palestinian security services confirmed their West Bank counterparts were sincerely debating dismantling and disarming the PA's forces.

December 2012:
If diplomatic stagnation continues after the Israeli election and construction in the settlements doesn't stop, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will dismantle the PA and return responsibility for the West Bank to the Israeli government, he told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.

"If there is no progress even after the election I will take the phone and call [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," Abbas said. "I'll tell him, 'my dear friend, Mr. Netanyahu, I am inviting you to the Muqata [the PA presidential headquarters in Ramallah]. Sit in the chair here instead of me, take the keys, and you will be responsible for the Palestinian Authority."

"Once the new government in Israel is in place, Netanyahu will have to decide -- yes or no," Abbas said.
December 2010:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA) if Israel does not stop building settlements on occupied Palestinian land, he told Palestinian television before heading to Turkey and Athens.

"If Israel does not stop settlement building and if US support for the negotiations collapses, I will strive to end Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories," he said.

"I cannot be the president of a non-existent authority as long as Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues," he said.
November 2009:
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has threatened to walk out on the struggling peace process between Palestine and Israel. Abbas announced he would not be running for election in January only a few days before other Palestinian officials claimed they were meeting in order to consider disbanding the authority. Internationally this has caused much dismay, as it strikes a blow to the fragile infrastructure of Palestine’s limited sovereignty as well as crushing hopes of further peace talks with Israel.
September 2008:
Rafik Husseini, the top adviser to the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, told The Sunday Telegraph that Palestinian politicians may take the drastic step of disbanding the authority if a lasting agreement is not reached during the current peace negotiations.

Such a move would mark the end of the US-backed talks launched with much fanfare at Annapolis last November, the report said, and put day-to-day Palestinian governance back in Israeli hands, almost certainly igniting fresh violence in the process.
July 2008:
Abbas vows to dismantle PA if Israel frees Hamas prisoners for Shalit
June 2007:
President Mahmoud Abbas will dissolve the Palestinian Authority's governmentThursday after fighting between rival parties Hamas and Fatah consumed the Gaza Strip and was expected to call for a state of emergency, sources close to Abbas confirmed to FOX News.
 The threats are as empty as always.

The funny part is that the only reason the threat is a threat at all is because the Palestinian Arabs know very well that Israel isn't an apartheid state. If it was, then Israel would say "Great, thanks for giving us back our land, have fun living under our apartheid regime."  It is only a threat because Israel isn't at all the nation that they portray it as, and they know it.

But it is nice to know that there are Arabs who say out loud that they want to see a Greater Israel.
  • Thursday, June 04, 2015
  • Elder of Ziyon

The PLO and Jordan agree: Jordan is Palestine

Last week, at the Islamic Jerusalem Conference at Al-Quds University, Jordanian Minister Hayel Dawod said that "Jordan and Palestine are one body with one spirit."

This week, PA president Mahmoud Abbas agreed, telling his Jordanian hosts “We will maintain our relation as one people living in two states.”

In other words, there already is a Palestinian Arab state. Abbas said so.

This is not just a "gotcha." This fact that most Jordanians are of Palestinian ancestry, that Jordan considered the West Bank to be an integral part of its territory and that most Palestinian Arabs had Jordanian citizenship between 1950 and 1988 are undeniable. It is tough to argue that that West Bank Palestinians are a distinct people from East Bank Palestinians.

But the natural reaction to that fact isn't, as Jordan fears, a mass expulsion of millions of West Bankers so Israel can take it all over. No one who is serious  is advocating that.

The natural response is that Israel could negotiate with Jordan over the borders between their two countries.

When Jordan and Mahmoud Abbas both admit that there is already a Palestinian state east of the Jordan, the rest of the world should reasonably ask why a second Palestinian state is such a necessity.

Well over 95% of West Bank Arabs live under PA rule today. Their lives would clearly improve under Jordanian rule. And they would be living in a Palestinian state. (Jordan was eastern Palestine before World War 1, after all.)

Israel can trust Jordan to ensure that no rockets or terror attacks originate in its territory. Israel would absorb the Arabs who live in Area C, or whatever is agreed would stay with Israel, eliminating the bogus "apartheid" charge. Israel can be far more flexible with Jordan as a peace partner than they can with the PLO, and the Palestinians would end up with much more.

The fact that the West doesn't even contemplate such a solution, one that is far superior to any other two-state solution, proves as well as anything else that Palestinians are not serious about peace with Israel. They don't want a solution - they want an excuse to keep attacking, with terror as well as diplomatically and with public opinion. A realistic solution that benefits Israel in the slightest is anathema because the entire purpose of a Palestinian state is to hurt - and eventually eliminate - Israel.

That is why they spend so much effort on things like FIFA and NGOs and the UN. That's why they refuse to negotiate seriously. That explains every single thing they do. 

It is well past time for the West to wake up to this simple, irrefutable fact.

(h/t Yoel)

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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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