Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Training public school kids how to be good Muslims in Massachusetts and Germany

Sixth graders from Wellesley Middle School took a trip to the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury in May to learn about Islam as part of their Social Studies curriculum.

The students heard a presentation on the history and culture of Islam and then the girls were separated from the boys to observe the daily prayer at the mosque.

Five boys from the class appear to have taken part in the prayer, bowing and touching their foreheads to the floor, according to a video shot by a parent chaperone. The boys were flanked by mosque members. One of them was Jewish, according to the chaperone.

The chaperone, a Wellesley mother whose identity has not been revealed, gave the video to Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston nonprofit that acts as a watchdog for radical Islam in America.

“None of the teachers or school officials at the mosque intervened to stop them from participating in a Muslim ritual prayer,” said Charles Jacobs, the group’s co-founder and executive director. “One can only imagine if students were taken to a church and the priest had them kneeling and crossing themselves or taking the wafer; it would cross a line.”

From Al Arabiya:

The German state of Lower Saxony will start including Islam in its schools’ core curriculum as part of an initiative to counter growing anti-Islam sentiments in Europe.

Dr. Bernd Althusmann, Minister for Education at the northwestern state of Lower Saxony, announced that schools in the state will start including Islamic education in their main curriculum, the London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported Thursday.

“I think we will be able to start implementation by the academic year after the next,” Althusmann said during a visit to an elementary school in the city of Hanover and in which he attended an Islamic education class.

For the time being, Islamic education has not exceeded a few experimental models in 42 schools in Lower Saxony. Almost 2,000 Muslim students in these schools currently get Islamic education in the state.

The German media has been reporting this as well, although those articles imply that the Islamic education is for Muslims, not for the general student population. it is unclear however whether non-Muslim students would be required to take part in this part of the "core curriculum."

When headline writers don't read the articles

YNet, on its front page, shows this link to an article:

So is Amazon Associates offering a discount for this weekend - 20% off all machzorim and kittels?

Not quite.

Reports: Israel warns Hamas leaders that they'll be killed if rockets continue

Arab media is reporting that Israel has sent a message to Arab countries that the policy of targeted assassinations will resume unless the recent massive increase in terror attacks stops.

Jerusalem-based newspaper Al Manar reports that in response to the terror attacks and massive increase in rocket fire since the negotiations between the PA and Israel resumed, Israel contacted Arab nations to let Hamas know that there will be serious consequences for any escalation.

Although I cannot find the source now, there were reports yesterday that Hamas leaders fled a meeting out of fear that Israeli warplanes would attack.

Friends of Israel Initiative

The Friends of Israel Initiative launched in the US this week. As its press release at its US launch says:

The Friends of Israel Initiative (FII), a group of leading policymakers and world leaders chaired by former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, announced today the U.S. launch of their
international campaign to combat the global effort to delegitimize the State of Israel.

Organized and launched in Paris and London in summer 2010, FII is a first of its kind -- a high-level group of international leaders who insist that Israel has a legal right to exist as a normal Western democracy, and that fellow Western nations have a moral obligation to defend that right.

"It is not just a matter of Israel being the West’s first line of defense against global jihadism, and that if Israel fell the West as we know it would cease to exist," said Prime Minister Aznar.

"It is certainly all of that as well, but even more critically the issue of Israel is an ethical issue. The West has lost the moral clarity required to address anti-Semitic criticisms of the Jewish State and to defend the right of Israelis to live peacefully within defensible borders."

Joining Prime Minister Aznar in the effort are the eleven original signatories of the Friends of Israel statement and the tens of thousands who have signed the group’s petition.

Reflecting Americans’ broad, bipartisan support for Israel, FII will not support the specific policies of any government, politician or political party. Instead the organization will defend Israel as a normal, democratic country, with all the virtues and defects of any fellow democracy, and as a key member of the alliance of nations dedicated to defending the West’s fundamental values of freedom, tolerance, human rights, prosperity and stability.

Aznar's speech at the Washington launch included this:

We defend Israel because we believe is the best strategy in current times to defend the West.

When we started putting this Initiative in motion, the whole World was condemning Israel for reasons I don’t need to elaborate since you know them better than I do.

Now, the atmosphere has changed a little since direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have reassumed and the peace process is moving ahead. Despite all the difficulties the negotiations may experience, I think we all should recognize the value, the prospects, and the hopes they represent. I am sure that Israel wants peace, and I know that all true friends of Israel want to see her achive that dream of peace and security.

But as we made clear in our first statement (which should have been on your chair tonight, by the way), there are problems in the region greater than just an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Problems that will not go away even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is eventually reached.

While Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and her economy has strengthened in recent years, now not decades ago, Israel, is facing increasing dangers. She has been forced to defend her people from Hezbollah in the North and thousands of Hamas rockets in the South. And. perhaps most worryingly, Israel is increasingly threatened by the scenario of a nuclear Iran – something the world must certainly act urgently to prevent.

On top of that, Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, 56, 67 or 73. Not terrorism as we saw in the 70s, 80s and 90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel legitimacy, on her right to exist. A “soft-war”, where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO’s to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian State, a State that should be isolated and converted into a pariah State.

We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk -- not only for Israel and its people -- but for all of us.

Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.

Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.

Let me be clear. We don’t want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israelis institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimizing Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.

So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down, which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen, we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.
So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: Enough. Stop this non-sense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a corner stone of our Western civilization?

We do believe that far from it, It is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.

Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.

I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.

Aznar also strongly defended Israel at the WJC meeting in Jerusalem earlier this month. Here's that video:

As Jeffrey Goldberg, who attended and spoke at the Washington dinner, writes,

What other country, sixty-two years after its birth (rebirth, actually) requires advocates to argue that it should continue to exist? Why is it that the world's only Jewish country is the only country to persistently face questions about its own legitimacy? In my brief remarks at the dinner, I mentioned a prime strategy of the Israel-denial movement, which is to convince self-defined liberals and leftists that Zionism is incompatible with their understanding of the world. I hope Aznar's group does a more vigorous job of recruiting pro-Israel leftists to its ranks (one of the organization's high muckety-mucks jokingly suggested Fidel Castro as a board member), because this is a prime worry of mine, that the most liberal country in the Middle East is being abandoned by people who should be its natural allies. Of course, as I've mentioned before, I believe Israel could do a much better job of being liberal -- liberal in the broadest (and American, not European) sense of the term, but Israel's many flaws have not (yet, at least) overwhelmed the fundamental truth that it is the safest and best place in the Middle East to be, among other things, a woman, a gay person, a journalist, and a dissident.

(h/t Zvi)

Today's insane Arab rumor: Mossad training Al Qaeda in Africa

An Algerian newspaper, En Nahar, is claiming to have evidence that Israel is working together with Al Qaeda members in Africa in order to de-stabilize various northern African Muslim states.

The original claim comes from some supposedly Jewish anti-Zionist group.

Apparently, the Mossad is training Al Qaeda to kidnap Europeans and hold them for ransom, and also teaching them to work the drug and human trafficking trades. This causes Europeans to put political pressure on Algeria and other Maghreb states, ultimately to make them fail. Or something like that.

This story has been picked up by a number of other Arabic news sites.

Interestingly, the same newspaper had a somewhat similar report in April 2009, in their English language edition:

According to sources well informed on the case and the activities of El Qaeda, Israel would have created about a year, training camps on its territory for elements from Arab countries.

The military training and intelligence are provided in preparation for possible terrorist operations against the interests of foreign countries in the Arab countries who are regarded by Israel as a threat to its security and its strategic interests, including the Maghreb Arab.

According to our sources, the camps include Arabs from Algeria, Morocco and Yemen who came in, with false passports, from Europe and carrying Jewish names. These were recruited by the Mossad in the European capitals to activate within the ‘El Qaeda’ organization after being selected by the intelligence services in Europe. These people are generally wanted for belonging to terrorist groups.

The secret training camps have relations with the sleeping cells of El Qaida in Europe, where their elements are recruited for possible terrorist operations in Arab countries in coordination with the branches of the organization including the armed terrorist groups of the Sahara.

We have to get these guys in touch with Ken O'Keefe. Who knows what heights of insanity they could reach if only they worked together!

Hamas keeps curtailing human rights; world keeps ignoring it (updated)

Here are some recent violations of human rights by Hamas that you will not find mentioned in the New York Times, Reuters, the Guardian or pretty much anywhere else.

This week, Hamas prevented Gaza journalists from participating in a video-conference with their West Bank counterparts and a delegation of the International Federation of Journalists in Ramallah.

Hamas shut down a restaurant/cafe called Al-Orient House because it was sponsoring concerts and other events for both men and women.

A cultural evening hosted by the Film Forum at the Samak restaurant, scheduled to be held on September 7, was shut down despite the organizers already having obtained a permit. Two of the organizers were arrested and forced to sign a pledge not to host any similar events.

On September 12th, a cultural evening organized by the Alumni Association of various Gaza community colleges was forced to end when Hamas shut it down.

The "Crazy Water Park" was shut down twice, once for three days in August and once in September. The August closing was because of "raucous concerts" but no reason was given for the more recent closing, in effect for 21 days.

Other recent closings included the Equestrian Club and the Sama Gaza coffee shop, the latter because of "mixing and hookah-smoking women."

Wow...sounds like maybe Gazans really are living in an open-air prison, with Hamas acting as the warden. Not that you will hear any well-known activists say that.

UPDATE: Hamas closed a restaurant Wednesday because a woman was smoking a water pipe.

Voice of America's fractured history of Hebron

From VOANews:

Palestinian Residents Say Peace Only Possible Without Jewish Settlers

Among the biggest challenges to the U.S.-brokered peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians is the conflict surrounding the more than 100 Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians say the settlements make it impossible for them to have a contiguous Palestinian state and have threatened to quit the negotiations unless Israel extends a partial construction freeze that is set to expire September 26.

Palestinian residents in the area around Hebron - the scene of frequent clashes between the two groups - want more than a construction freeze. They are calling for a total withdrawal of settlements.

Jabari lives in an area of Hebron across the road from the entrance to this neighborhood, a part of the Kiryat Arba settlement.

He is on the front line of the conflict between Palestinians who have lived here for hundreds of years and Jewish settlers who have made this their home here over the past few decades.

It is bad enough that VOA doesn't mention the Jewish ties to Hebron that span thousands of years, nor the the 1929 massacre and 1930s riots that ethnically cleansed Hebron of Jews.

There's another small fact about Hebron's Arab population that VOA doesn't seem to realize: Hebron's Arab population has more than quadrupled since it became "occupied." In other words, the majority of Hebron's Arab residents have not lived there any longer than the Jewish residents of Kiryat Arba and Hebron! Most of them moved into the area after Israel recovered the area in 1967.

(h/t an anonymous emailer)

Algerians investigating the Star of David Koran (clarified)

Algerian authorities launched an exhaustive investigation into finding out exactly how some Korans with a six-pointed star on their cover managed to make it into their country.

Algerian newspaper Echorouk has all the details. Their image is somewhat different from the one that was originally published in YNet.

A number of Islamic parties are demanding accountability and punishments for the scandal. One Islamic leader said "such incidents distort beliefs and myths touching the doctrine of the Algerians, making one wonder where was the control of the [Religious Affairs] Ministry for this incident?!" He also said that it must have been imported by some synagogue.

Another said that the incident was "unfortunate and should not be tolerated."

The Religious Affairs Ministry said that "the original copy delivered to the Commission had the star mixed within the geometric form and it was not prominent or separated from the rest of the decoration" on the cover.

The Koran was published in Egypt. The Korans will be properly disposed of.

UPDATE: I originally said "The Korans will be properly destroyed" but the translation I had was "disposed," so that was my mistake. There are some reports that Muslims respectfully burn old unusable Korans, others say they bury them or dispose of them in a river. Possibly all three, but burning seems to be a last resort.

Hamas uses phosphorus bombs! Human rights organizations outraged!

Well, the headline is half-right....

At least two of the nine mortar shells fired Wednesday into Eshkol Regional Council were phosphorus bombs, police confirmed after initially declining the corroborate a claim made by the area's security officer.

Police sappers examined and identified the two phosphorus bombs. ...Police said that this is not the first time phosphorus bombs have been fired from Gaza.

No comment or outrage from the usual suspects.

I guess when Israel uses phosphorus it is a war crime; when Hamas does it is a firecracker.

PA attacks non-violent Muslim sect

From Makor Rishon (Hebrew), via Daily Alert:

The Ahmadi Muslim sect, founded in 1889 in India, now numbers tens of millions of believers, mostly living outside the Arab world. “We believe in a tolerant, friendly and rational Islam,” says Muhammad Sharif, head of the Ahmadis in Israel. Former Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna notes that among this community there is “no incitement, violence, or feeling the need to conquer the whole world.”

Yet members of the sect who live in the Palestinian Authority have been suffering from incessant persecution, confiscation of property, and physical violence during the past year. Muhammad Jaabri, 46, of Hebron, a married father of four, explains: “They have repeatedly written threats and curses on the walls of my house. They’ve burned my car twice, thrown rocks at my windows.” A month ago Jaabri was attacked by a group of radical religious youth near his home. “They beat me with clubs, and I was in the hospital for days.” After his release, “I went to the police to file a complaint and they sent me to PA security service investigators, where I was beaten again and jailed.”

Muhammad Alawi, 34, from Tulkarm, was summoned to a PA Sharia court with his wife, who is not from an Ahmadi family, where she was ordered to leave her husband and return with her three children to her own family, who had initiated the legal proceedings.

The Ahmadiyyahs are an interesting Muslim sect. Supposedly, they are the ones to have translated the Koran into Yiddish - a very surreal sight (click to enlarge):

Gaza hospital, owed millions by the PA, closes maternity ward

From Ma'an:

A hospital in the northern Gaza Strip warned Wednesday that it was forced to shut down its maternity ward over an insurance dispute with the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, a statement read.

The Al-Awda Hospital in the Jabaliya area north of Gaza City said the move placed approximately 7,000 pregnant women with insurance at risk. The hospital said the women all currently receive treatment at the hospital on a yearly basis.

The statement said the closure was the result of "the PA Ministry of Health's ignorance toward accumulating debt, which has reached $2 million. This money is considered a significant part of the operational budget of the hospital, representing 40 percent of its monthly income."

With the millions owning the hospital in claimed public health insurance dollars, the hospital said it would no longer be able to operate if they were not reimbursed.

Notice that the infrastructure of Gaza is still largely financed by the PA, although they have zero political influence there. Hamas is free to pour all its Iranian and Syrian money into weapons and building a terror infrastructure, without any concern about actually taking responsibility for the citizens of the strip.

Meanwhile, some 60% of the PA budget is going to indirectly propping up Hamas' terror statelet. The hospital in this case doesn't even consider going to Hamas for the money to keep it going.

The PA and the Western world that funds it are somehow hoping that by continuing to pump hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza, it will maintain some sort of influence and the ability to dictate terms of a conciliation. This is a fantasy. The break between Fatah and Hamas is all but complete.

The only chance that the PA would have of gaining control of Gaza would be to cut off the funds that are helping Hamas rule. (This would also help solve the PA's own monetary woes.)

They won't dare do it because it would cause short-term harm to Gazans, yet that is the only way to get Hamas to even think about compromise. No Western politician would publicly advocate or endorse such a move and HRW and Amnesty would go nuts. However, if anyone wants to actually solve the problem of Hamastan, that is the only way (short of pressuring Egypt to annex the territory and naturalize the citizens, which would be ideal.)

Journalism ethics, PalArab style

From Ma'an:

Extremists desecrated a Quran in West Jerusalem on Monday, a Palestinian from Bethlehem said Tuesday.

Bethlehem University student Muhammad Munir claims a group of Israeli Jews tore pages out of the Muslim holy book on Jaffa street.

Munir said he saw the incident while walking from work to his home in Wadi Al-Joz.

"I found papers on the ground. At the beginning I thought they were ordinary papers, but when I looked at them I saw that they included text from the holy Quran and pedestrians were stepping on them," he said.

Munir said he spent 10 minutes collecting the papers while bystanders insulted him and one kicked him.

Once again, Ma'an publishes a story based on a single "witness" without the slightest shred of proof. Do we have photos of the torn pages, or of Munir's injuries?

Of course not. This story fits in with Ma'an's tradition of publishing even the most absurd claims (like Jews raising wild boars and setting them loose to antagonize Arab farmers) as fact.

In this case, the story is already picked up by Hamas' AlQassam website and it will spread from there into, possibly, violent riots. People might even get killed because of this irresponsible "journalism."

But when the point of your journalism has little to do with the truth, it all makes sense.

The mythical Arab village of "Tel ar-Rabi"

Ma'an News has an article about the violent fantasy video of Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansing Tel Aviv of Jews. It includes this curious part:

Gaza native Muhammad Al-Amrity says he and his friend Ayman Hijazi made the film. It was inspired by a dream he had of his family that originates in Tel Ar-Rabi, which became Tel Aviv. "I tried to go back to my city in the dream."

Was there ever an Arab village named "Tel ar-Rabi" that the Jews Judaized with the imperialist name of Tel Aviv?

Here is a map of the area of Jaffa from a guidebook published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker three years before Tel Aviv was founded. (The original edition of the guidebook was published in the late 1800s, but I do not know in which edition this map was first published. The identical map can be found in the 1912 edition.)

To the northeast of Jaffa, where Tel Aviv is now, the map shows a large section of sand dunes ("sandhills") by the coast, with a section called simply "vineyards" a bit inland. And, in fact, Jews purchased that land from the al-Jabali family - the area was known as "Karm al-Jabali," which literally means the al-Jabali vineyards (in Hebrew, Kerem Jabali) in 1905.

Needless to say, there is no mention of "Tel ar-Rabi" in this map nor in the fairly exhaustive Baedeker guidebook itself. Neither is it mentioned in an entire book written by rabid anti-Zionist Mark LeVine who tries, unsuccessfully, to prove that Tel Aviv was built on top of Arab-owned land.

The entire idea of an Arab town or village that was obliterated by Tel Aviv fits in nicely with the Arab narrative of violent Jewish colonialism, but it is simply another lie that gets promulgated in the Arab media and, from there, excites the imaginations of the anti-Israel crowd in the West.

And notice the very name of the fictional village is chosen to make it sound like Jews humiliated Arabs by naming their town Tel Aviv, a name that in fact came from the original Hebrew translation of Herzl's Altneuland, taken from Ezekiel 3:15.

Krazy Ken O'Keefe gets closer to revealing his kike-hatred

Ken O'Keefe, the lunatic who is trying to extend his fifteen minutes of fame from the Mavi Marmara, is interviewed in the ultra-left Baltimore Chronicle, where he gets a little closer to revealing his true feelings about the Elders who rule the world (thank you, thank you.)

Some excerpts:

The world is full of illusions that are used by the rich and powerful to manipulate and control the people. Those who really control the governments are those powerful few who control the banking systems, the major multi-national corporations and, of course, the mass media.

These powerful people and entities have key strategic needs in order to maintain power:

They must keep the people ignorant and disempowered.

They must keep the people divided. They conquer by dividing the people, never giving people the chance to unite; constantly fostering war by pitting the masses against each other

This system has been controlled by the same families for millennia, and people have been manipulated into a collective state of insanity throughout. Over the course of this tragic situation, empires have come and gone, each one giving way to the next. America is simply the latest in that repeating pattern, and it will fall like all empires do. However, the powers behind it, those controlling the banking, the governments and the propaganda, they will remain in place and prop up the next empire and the pattern will repeat.

The powers themselves remain hidden, with many layers of separation between themselves and the people, and an intricate and complex legal system to protect and hide them.

The Zionist project has been invested in heavily, and the powers that be will not relinquish it lightly.

Israel's primary function is to maintain perpetual conflict in the Middle East. Soon enough, Israel will be spreading this conflict on a global level. I have no doubt that the pending attack on Iran is intended to take us straight into World War III, with a regional nuclear war very likely. This is quite obviously a disaster to any sane human being. However, to those who see their power threatened by the spreading of truth, 9-11, Zionism, the banking system, etc, this is a very necessary act to help them maintain their grip of control over peoples of the world. This 'divide and conquer' strategy has served them well for millennia.

So who are these mysterious powers that rule the world, control banking, control the media, use prime ministers and presidents as puppets for their bidding, and who happen to be heavily invested in the "Zionist project"?

Hmmm. That's a toughie.

Zvi on Jewish refugees, the West Bank and the PA's games

Zvi commented:

Jewish Refugees

The Jews who "left by choice" were motivated by pogroms, riots, theft and violence, together with a rising tide of demonization of Jews and a series of murders in various Arab countries, together with the knowledge that Arab nationalist movements used Nazi propaganda and had Nazi advisors. Jews in the region had every reason to fear what was coming. Given the subsequent history of many of the Arab governments, it is crystal clear that only the flight of most of the Jews from the Arab world prevented even more extreme repression or annihilation.

The claim that the Jews "left by choice" neglects to point out the nature of the choice. The evidence of the Shoah - then very recent - showed that it was smarter to get out before they had to watch their kids' blood running in the streets.

This year, in 2010, the last Jews of Yemen have not been expelled from Yemen either. But only a particularly cruel sort of madman would insist that they remain there as Islamist threats and violence against them grow more and more terrifying.

The claim that Jews from the Arab countries would be granted any kind of mass right of return - to anything other than a temporary "stay of genocide" - is simply not credible at this point in history. The heavily funded and promoted Anti-Semitism industry in the Arab world has worked for decades to indelibly poison those populations. For at least the next 100 years, and probably much longer, the toxin will be far too dangerous for any significant Jewish presence to exist in those lands. Hatred, demonization and conspiracy theories take a long time to wipe out, even with wisely designed democratic systems and general goodwill toward Jews, all of which are lacking in Arab countries.

In addition, society abhors a vacuum as much as nature does. Non-Jews have replaced the Jews of Iraq, Libya, etc., and there are too many Arabs with incentives to commit acts of violence against any Jewish returnees - whom they would see as a direct competitive threat. Arab Muslims in Iraq, who continue to slaughter each other in a bloody power game and in a bloody campaign of massacres, would unite to slaughter returning Jews.

No person has a right to require that an Israeli Jew whose parents helped to build the democratic State of Israel that he must go back to be obliterated in Iraq or Algeria. No person has a right, based on idealistic notions that ignore the facts on the ground, to pretend that it is possible to roll anything back to 1948 or 1967.

Sanity

The only reasonable approach is to adopt the same model used by most nations throughout most of history: accept that wars happened, and that an exchange of populations happened, get over it and live in the present rather than trying to inhabit an imaginary past or an ideal world. There will be no "right of return" for Arabs who left Israel in 1948 - not to Israel, at any rate. If someone else wants to grant Arabs a "right of return" to its own sovereign territory, then they have every right to do so.

The sovereign state of Israel took up the challenge of relieving and mainstreaming the Jewish refugees from the Arab world, a challenge that no other country was willing to meet. It continues to do so to this day, providing the only reliable haven in a world that sees Jews fleeing from places like Yemen. Mizrahi Jewish refugees and their descendents were granted Israeli citizenship decades ago, have contributed to the construction of the State of Israel and have an absolute right to remain in Israel and in territories that Israel annexed during a decades-long defensive war in which its neighbors tried repeatedly to annihilate it.

The grandchildren of the Arabs who left what is now Israel back in 1948 - however brief or long their stay in "Palestine" and whatever their reason for leaving - have rights too. They have an absolute right to be sworn in as citizens in the Arab countries in which they and their parents were born. If a Palestinian leadership, with sovereignty established through a final peace agreement, decides to grant these people a "right of return" to territories that the Palestinians hold as a sovereign state, then that is a Palestinian prerogative. But the "Palestinian" Arabs abroad nevertheless have a right to stay exactly where they are if they wish to do so.

The West Bank

Over the almost two decades since Oslo I, it has become quite clear that the settlements are simply one of many (invalid) excuses for Arab violence and intransigence - no more, no less. The western press has piled on, as have pontificating demagogues and talking heads, but this does not make the excuse any more meaningful.

The West Bank is not Occupied; it is formally Disputed. There is a difference. A disputed territory is one to which multiple parties may have a claim, and there is no law that forbids a government from allowing populations to move into disputed territories. Were there such a law, would the Palestinians entering the West Bank with Arafat in the 1990s not have been in violation? After all, if there were such a law, then neither side should have been bringing populations into a Disputed territory.

Regarding Disputed territories, here is a list of disputed territories around the world (there are an awful lot of them). You have heard of Korea, Kosovo, Taiwan, Jammu and Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and South Ossetia, but there are many more. And guess what? Virtually every government that holds any substantial disputed territory either allows or actively encourages "settlement" of that territory.

Can you imagine telling South Korea (or North Korea, for that matter - the whole peninsula is Disputed) that it can't establish a town, or expand an existing one?
How about telling India that it can't build anything in Jammu and Kashmir because that will change the facts on the ground in a way that could prejudice future negotiations?
How about telling the British that they can't build anything in the Falklands, or Gibraltar? Hint: the UK is now exploring for oil off the Falklands.
How about telling Taiwan that it can't build anything?
What about telling Russia that nothing can be built in South Ossetia and Abkhazia?
Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh?

Why is it only Israelis who are not allowed to exist normally?

Let's please stop repeating the "conventional wisdom" that the West Bank is "Occupied." Conventional wisdom is wrong.

Is the PA Serious?

Settlement blocs like Maale Adumim are expected to be part of a trade. Everyone involved knows this; various proposals exist. Lieberman, for instance, proposed turning over some of the largely-Arab areas of Israel to the PA in exchange, together with their populations - who don't accept a Zionist country anyway - if those people want to remain on their land. Again, the Arab leadership needs to get over it and stop pretending that the last 40 years never happened. Israel is pretty much expecting to have to trade some territory for these settlement blocs. There has been little expansion of anything outside of these blocs recently.

The Palestinians need to stop playing image/power/revenge games and start trying to close a deal. The thing that will end the expansion of settlements forever is a real, meaningful, implemented and permanent peace agreement, one that defines a national border.

Anyone who is serious about ending the expansion of settlements would push hard to conclude a treaty that would define a workable national border. Any person who claims to want an end to the growth of settlements should be hammering on the PA's door, demanding that they stop playing games and start pursuing a real agreement. The fact that Abbas would rather play stupid PR games about settlements rather than hastening that day shows that he simply is not serious.

So, using this metric to measure the how serious Abbas and his cronies are about resolving the disputed status of the West Bank and Gaza, we find that they are not serious at all. What is more, they have never been serious. They have run away from every single opportunity to negotiate a peace that would end the growth of settlements.

Every single opportunity.