Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

May 1949: Israel supports a Palestinian Arab state; Arabs oppose

Wafa quotes Mahmoud Abbas:

It has been our right to establish a Palestinian state since 1948, but the conditions were difficult. Now, we’ll get our right through the United Nations,

As I have shown, when he says "the conditions were difficult" it really means "our leaders were dead-set against it."

But what most people don't realize is that Israel was the only country in the Middle East that supported an independent Palestinian Arab state before Jordan and Egypt occupied the territories!

Here is an amazing article from the Palestine Post, May 15, 1949:

Here's the text:

LAUSANNE, Saturday (Reuter). — The Palestine Conciliation Commission today heard a preliminary outline of Israel's views for territorial settlement given by Dr. Walter Eytan, held of the Israel delegation.

(Dr. Ertan challenged the right or any Arab state to act in the affairs of Palestine Arabs, and said that Israel was not prepared to recgonize the incorporation of Arab Palestine in any other Arab state, according to Jon Kimche, ONA correspondent.)

It was undentood he told the Commission that the first step toward territorial settlement must be the withdrawal of forces of neighbouring Arab States from all Arab territory, and was believed to have insisted on observance of the U.N. General Assembly Resolution of November 29, 1947, providing for independent Jewish and Arab States.

An independent sovereign Jewish State had come into existence despite the Arab War and the only result of that war had been to prevent the creation of an independent Arab state, he said. Dr. Eytan was also understood to have insisted that the future of Arab Palestine must be decided by the Arab inhabitants themselves. The General Assembly gave the neighbouring States no title to any part of the country, he said.

Kimche reports that the Commission had proposed the Partition resolution as the basis for discussion. He further reports that Dr. Eytan suggetsed that the Commission hold a plebiscite in the Arab area to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants, and assist in the establishment of a genuine representative body for Arab Palestine.

Yes, Israel supported a democratic Palestinian Arab state that reflects the wishes of its inhabitants atthe same time that Arab states refused that idea and at the same time the Palestinian Arab leaders in the West Bank chose instead to become part of (then) Transjordan.

Now, after decades of rejectionism, Abbas is pretending that it is time for a "do-over." Let's all pretend that Palestinian Arabs leaders chose not to have a state, that repeated wars meant to exterminate Israel never happened, that the terrorism that the majority of Palestinian Arabs still applaud is imaginary, that the Jews who fought for and died for the land so their people could live in security are worthless, that the Arab ethnic cleansing of Jews from the territories - and indeed all Arab countries - never happened. Nope, let's pretend it is 1947 again and the UN just voted for partition.

What will stop the next Palestinian Arab leader from saying, a few years from now, that "we have the right to all the land from the river to the sea, but we didn't insist on it in 2011 because conditions were difficult. But now we want to exercise that right." That is what they believe today, after all.

And nothing Israel could give up nowadays would change that.

Links!

Besides the Shalit deal, other big news stories:

ABC News reveals an Iranian directed plot against the Saudi and Israel embassies in Washington DC. Legal documents here.

Israel to formally apologize to Egypt over the soldiers killed during the cross-border terror attack in August.

The hunger strike by Arabs in Israeli prisons is not being embraced by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, causing a rift. The prisoner demands include satellite TV and whole chickens.

The home page seen by Starbucks customers includes some pro-Palestinian Arab propaganda.

TNR has a paywalled interview with Natan Sharansky; I'm trying to get a link to the full article.

Central Bus Station terrorists indicted.

(h/t CHA, Huffwatch, Silke)

Breaking: Shalit deal breakthrough (updated)

Arab and Israeli sources indicate that there is a possible deal to free Gilad Shalit.

From Ha'aretz:

Israel and Hamas reached a prisoner exchange deal that will secure the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, a report by Al-Arabiya said on Tuesday.

The report came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency cabinet meeting scheduled for later Tuesday in which ministers are to discuss the status of talks geared at securing Shalit's release.

This is confirmed by the Prime Minister's office Twitter account:

@IsraeliPMThe PM of Israel

#Breaking: I'm holding a special Cabinet meeting now, to discuss a deal to free #Gilad #Shalit

Al Arabiya says that Egypt brokered the deal.

Reuters quotes the channel as saying the exchange would be scheduled for the beginning of November.

If it does happen, and assuming that over a thousand prisoners are released including a couple of high-profile terrorists, it would strengthen Hamas politically, at least in the short term.

(h/t CHA)

UPDATE: Hamas confirms.

UPDATE 2: Deal was initialed last week, formally signed today. "He will be coming home in the next few days."

UPDATE 3: Ma'an Arabic quotes unofficial sources that Marwan Barghouti and Abdullah al-Barghouti are among the terrorists being swapped. Also, a number of women prisoners, and six Israeli Arabs. Shalit would be transported to Egypt and then Israel would release about 1000 prisoners. Hamas claims to have received 99% of its demands.

UPDATE 4: Hamas claims that every female prisoner will be released. I did a post about many of these female terrorists in 2006.

UPDATE 5: Israel's Channel 1 is saying that the Barghoutis are not part of the deal.

Egypt now accuses Ilan Grapel of firebombing police stations

From JPost:

Egypt added setting fire to police stations to the list of charges faced by American-Israeli law student Ilan Grapel, who has been detained in Cairo since June on suspicion of spying for Jerusalem, state-run Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Monday.

The state reportedly accused Grapel of throwing fire bombs at police headquarters at the Egyptian Interior Ministry in the wake of Egypt's January revolution, based on witness statements. The charges are in addition to espionage.

The Al Ahram article is here.

Al Ahram, which is a state-run newspaper, has been in the forefront of accusing Grapel of being a spy. And as well all know, the best spies like to discreetly throw firebombs while freely admitting the country they came from to anyone who asks.

The difference between a real historian and Rashid Khalidi

This post by Martin Kramer starkly shows the difference between how a real historian acts and how a propagandist poseur self-styled "historian" named Rashid Khalidi acts:

Last fall, Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, offered his audiences an account of how Leon Uris came to write the book. In a speech at Brooklyn Law School, Khalidi made this claim:

This carefully crafted propaganda was the work of seasoned professionals. People like someone you probably never heard of, a man named Edward Gottlieb, for example. He’s one of the founders of the modern public relations industry. There are books about him as a great advertiser.

In order to sell the great Israeli state to the American public many, many decades ago, Gottlieb commissioned a successful, young novelist. A man who was a committed Zionist, a fellow with the name of Leon Uris. He funded him and sent him off to Israel to write a book. This book wasExodus: A Novel of Israel. Gottlieb’s gambit succeeded brilliantly. Exodus sold as many copies as Gone With the Wind, which up to that point was the greatest best-seller in U.S. history. Exodus was as good a melodrama and sold just as many copies.

...Khalidi warned his Brooklyn audience that Gottlieb would be “someone you probably never heard of.” Quite right: I regard myself as reasonably informed about the history of American Zionism, and I had never heard of Edward Gottlieb. Khalidi claimed there were “books about him as a great advertiser,” so I did a search, but I couldn’t find one. When Gottlieb died in 1998, at the age of 88, no major newspaper ran an obituary. That seemed to me a rather scant trail for “the father of the American iteration of Zionism” and “the founder of public relations in the United States.”

One reason for the thin record, I discovered, is that Edward Gottlieb wasn’t the founder or even one of the founders of American public relations....
Gottlieb is likewise completely absent from works on American Zionism—there isn’t a single reference. Moreover, his name doesn’t appear in the two scholarly studies of Leon Uris: Matt Silver’s Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel’s Founding Story and Ira Nadel’s Leon Uris: Life of a Best Seller. I wrote to both scholars, asking them whether they had encountered the name of Edward Gottlieb in Uris’s personal papers, housed at the University of Texas and cited extensively in both studies. Silver wrote back that “I didn’t see anything about Edward Gottlieb” and Nadel answered that “I never came across G[ottlieb]‘s name.”

...Khalidi always presents himself as a historian, so I figured he wouldn’t have concocted the Gottlieb story out of whole cloth. He must have had a source. As it happens, the Gottlieb claim figures in three books that are classics in the Israel-bashing canon.

...Charlotte Klein, who handled the Israel account for Gottlieb, was unequivocal: Gottlieb didn’t commission Exodus, and the name of Leon Uris never came up in the Israel work of the firm.

In sum, the Gottlieb “commission” never happened. Uris’s biographers dismiss it, Gottlieb’s most knowledgeable associate denies it, and no documents in Uris’s papers or Israeli archives testify to it. It originated as a boast by Gottlieb to another PR man, made almost thirty years after the (non-)fact. And given its origin, it’s precisely the sort of story a serious professional historian would never repeat as fact without first vetting it (as I did).

Yet it persists in the echo chamber of anti-Israel literature, where it has been copied over and over. In Katheleen Christison’s book, it finally appeared under the imprimatur of a university press (California). In Khalidi’s lectures last fall, it acquired a baroque elaboration, in which Edward Gottlieb emerges as “the father of the American iteration of Zionism” and architect of “one of the greatest advertising triumphs of the twentieth century.” What is the myth’s appeal? Why is the truth about the genesis of Exodus so difficult to grasp? Why should Khalidi think the Gottlieb story is, in his coy phrase, “worth noting”?

Because if you believe in Zionist mind-control, you must always assume the existence of a secret mover who (as Khalidi said) “you probably never heard of,” and who must be a professional expert in deception. This “seasoned” salesman conceives of Exodus as a “gambit” (Khalidi) or a “scheme” (Christison). There is no studio or publisher’s advance, only a “commission,” which qualifies the book as “propaganda”—an “advertising triumph.” In Khalidi’s Brooklyn Law School talk, he added that “the process of selling Israel didn’t stop with Gottlieb…. It has continued unabated since then.” It is Khalidi’s purpose to cast Exodus, like the case for Israel itself, as a “carefully crafted” sales job by Madison Avenue mad men. Through their mediation, Israel has hoodwinked America.

In fact, the deception lies elsewhere. Exodus, novel and book, were universally understood to be works of fiction. In contrast, Rashid Khalidi claims to speak in the name of history—that is, carefully validated truth. “I’m a historian,” he has said. “What I can do best for the reader or audience is provide a background for which to see the present, not tell them about the present.” Again: “I’m a historian and I try not to speculate about the future.” And this: “I’m a historian, and I look at the way idealism has tended to operate, and it’s not a pretty picture.” And this one (which truly beggars belief): “I’m a historian, it’s not my job to attack or defend anybody.”

Kramer is too modest to point out the obvious, so I will: Kramer, a real academic, has given us a perfect example of how historians should check facts. He went to extraordinary lengths to check out a story, and even when it seemed that he had the answer he went the extra mile to double- and triple-check his facts. He went to archives, emailed people who would know and interviewed relevant actors who are still alive.

Khalidi, on the other hand, is a propagandist who pretends to be a historian. He does no original research, merely shuffling pieces of information he finds that conforms to his worldview and discarding that which doesn't. I have exposed some of his recent lies here and I went into some detail on his dishonesty in my book review of his work The Iron Cage (parts 1 and 2.)

It is worth reading the entire lengthy Kramer article just to appreciate the painstaking work that real historians and academics do to check facts - and to see, in contrast, how lazy and dishonest the Khalidis of the world are.

Hamas raids Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (again)

From Wafa:

Hamas forces Tuesday raided the main office of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS) in Gaza City seizing computers and cell phones of staff working there after ordering them to leave the premise, according to a PJS statement.

The PJS, based in Ramallah, denounced the Hamas act describing it as a “blatant act of aggression by Hamas.”

It accused Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip since June 2007, of harassing journalists, closing down press offices and preventing entry of newspapers published in the West Bank into the Strip.

Hamas does not recognize the PJS, which held elections last year in the West Bank only after Hamas refused to allow them in Gaza as well.

Hamas has also asked foreign journalists seeking to enter Gaza to get its permission days in advance of their planned trip to the besieged enclave.

A year ago Hamas raided and closed down the PJS as well.

Freedom of the press in Gaza!

(h/t CHA)

"Apartheid?" posters translated to Arabic for video!

From EoZ partner StandWithUs, an Arabic-language video that is based on my "Apartheid?" poster series.

What nice people: Iran offers free weapons for Lebanese army

From The Daily Star Lebanon:

Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi renewed his country’s offer Monday to equip the Lebanese Army during a meeting with Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn.

During the meeting, which reviewed local and Arab developments, Roknabadi said: “Iran stands on Lebanon’s side and is fully ready to provide any assistance it demands at all levels, especially with regard to the army’s armament,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

He also renewed Iran’s invitation to Ghosn to visit Tehran to discuss with Iranian officials agreements on military aid to the Lebanese Army, NNA said.

Ghosn praised “Iran’s backing for Lebanon” and underlined the need for boosting relations between the two countries, NNA said.

ISNA adds:

The remarks came in a meeting between Ghazanfar Roknabadi with Lebanese Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn, where the Lebanses official expressed gratitude over Iran's support for Lebanon's rights and said, "We are proud of the supports."

Fayez Ghosn also said he would visit Iran in near future following official invitation from his Iranian counterpart Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi.

"Iran is ready to back Lebanon's army and expand mutual relations with Iran including defense cooperation without any condition," the Iranian ambassador added.

When they say "without any condition," do you think that means that Lebanon can shoot back when Syrian tanks enter Lebanese territory?

Erekat uses lawfare against Al Jazeera (updated)

PLO official and serial liar Saeb Erekat filed a complaint with the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom against Al Jazeera over its release of the so-called "Palestine Papers."

He complained that the release of the papers was unjust to him.

Previously, he had said that their release would result in his life being threatened.

Erekat said the Qatar-based network had misrepresented quotes and made up others in covering "The Palestine Papers."

"What Al Jazeera people are doing is asking Palestinians to shoot me, physically. That's what they are doing. They are saying: 'You are guilty and thus you should be executed'," said Erekat, for years a central figure in the peace talks.

"Speaking for me and my family, they are inciting against our lives," he told Reuters in an interview at his office in the West Bank city of Jericho.

Which shows how much he believes that his people support compromises with Israel - he believes that they would murder him!

Ofcom, for its part, dismissed the allegations, saying that Erekat brought no evidence that the papers hurt him and that he had plenty of chances to tell the world his side of the story.

Al Jazeera was pleased at Ofcom's decision.

UPDATE: Challah Hu Akbar found the Ofcom ruling.

The main impression I get is that Erekat is really a whiner.

Report: Egypt bans Jewish pilgrims

From Arutz-7:

For the first time in recent history, Egypt has decided to completely bar Jews from visiting the tomb of Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira, head of the dynasty that included Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira, the famed “Baba Sali.”

The decision, issued by regional ruler Mukhtar el-Hamlawi, was reported by the Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa.

El-Hamlawi reported that a Cairo court had ruled that celebrations are forbidden at the tomb, and Jewish visitors would be barred for that reason.

In addition, he said, “We prohibit Jews from visiting the tomb because we identify with the Palestinian people, and because we do not want to offend the Egyptian public’s sensitivities.”

I couldn't find the story on Wafa. There are plenty of Arabic websites reporting it, but they all seem to be quoting Arutz-7.

So while the story is believable, and consistent with what we have seen in recent years in Egypt as people protest the pilgrimage, I'm still trying to confirm it.

Egyptian state TV fueled deadly protests with a lie

From Bikya Masr:

Egypt’s state television announced on Monday that there are no deaths among the military forces after previously reporting there were during the bloody Sunday clashes between the military and Coptic protesters, saying that it was the fault of the news presenter.

State TV, also known as Maspero, is under fire from rights activists for falsely reporting that the Coptic protesters attacked the military forces with weapons, which resulted in the death of at least three soldiers and then called on the Egyptian people to take to the street to help protect the armed forces.

The news, when reported on Sunday evening, agitated many Muslims, who took up arms and went to the streets of downtown, clashing with protesters, both Muslims and Coptic Christians, injuring dozens in the worst sectarian violence since the fall of ousted President Hosni Muabrak’s regime.

State TV also reported that the protesters were armed and initiated the violence that killed the soldiers, which escalated the bloodshed late on Sunday.

The Copts who were marching and demanding justice for the burning of a house of worship in southern Egypt last week, were shot at by the military upon their arrival at the state TV building by the military.

Videos posted online show armored vehicles running over people, killing and injuring scores of them. Eyewitnesses told Bikyamasr.com at the protest that Copts were “not armed” and the army was “not provoked to attack.”

International media outlets largely reported on Sunday night Cairo what state television was reporting.

Details from Al Masry al Youm:

[TV host Rasha] Magdy repeatedly emphasized that Coptic protesters were attacking soldiers. She started her broadcast by apologizing for not being able to host the families of military martyrs of the 1973 war because of the unfortunate events, and went on to say that “the same troops that fought the war and sided with the revolution earlier this year are under attack as we speak.”

Magdy, in what some view as an incitement to violence, ended her broadcast with a call on Egyptian citizens to protect the military.

“State TV committed a number of fatal mistakes,” says [journalism professor Nalia] Hamdy, citing an interview with a military soldier who called Coptic protesters “dogs” and asked people to defend the soldiers.

“This might not have been intentional,” says Hamdy. “But it is certainly giving the wrong message and has to stop.”

Channel One repeatedly claimed that Coptic protesters were attacking the military with stones, Molotov cocktails and occasionally live ammunition.

Work accident!

From the official Palestinian Arab Wafa news agency:

An Israeli Strike targeting the village of Umm Al-Nasser in the northern Gaza strip Monday killed a Palestinian, Ahmad Al-Azayzeh, from the town of Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza, according to local sources.

Sources said that Al-Azayzeh was killed while he was passing near the separation wall, of about 300 meters distance from the wall, adjacent to the Beit Hanoun crossing in northern Gaza.

And here is why you can never trust a word that Wafa tells you.

From the Washington Post:

The Israeli military said it was not involved. Army officials said they believed explosives detonated as militants tried to plant a bomb.

From Ma'an:

The military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed Ahmad al-Azazmeh, from the northern city of Beit Hanoun, as a fighter in their brigades, and said he was on a "jihad mission."

Yup, he exploded himself as he tried to plant a bomb at the Gaza border.

Give that man a Splodie Award!

Wire services: Only Palestinian Arabs grow olives

If you search for the word "olives" in wire service photos, you would get the impression that there is only one people on Earth who grow and harvest olives.

AP:

A Palestinian farmer empties a bucket of olives onto a pile, in a field outside the West Bank village of Al Araqah near Jenin, Monday, Oct. 10, 2011. Palestinians began to harvest olives in October, a staple for many local farmers that also use them to make oil.

Reuters:

A Palestinian woman picks olives during harvesting season in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza StripOctober 9, 2011.

Getty Images:

A Palestinian man collects olives at the start of the annual harvest season in Khan Yunis in the southernGaza Strip on October 8, 2011.

Indeed, you will look in vain if you try to find any photos of people in Italy or Spain harvesting this year's olive crop from news agencies.

Only one type of people, apparently, still harvest their own olives. By implication, only one set of people love their land so much as to still harvest olives the way that their ancestors did for centuries.

As I pointed out last year when this same phenomenon occurred, this is a subtle type of media bias that is pervasive, and no less pernicious than the more blatant types of bias we are used to.

It just so happens that Jews have been growing and harvesting olives for quite a long time in that area:

Olive press in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem

And they still do.

So why are there no photos - and I mean zero - of Israeli Jews harvesting olives from wire services?

Gaza farmers lose $1 million from Hamas lulav ban

Video report from Al Jazeera:

The report makes it clear that Hamas' reasons have nothing to do with any tree disease and everything to do with inconveniencing Jews.

By the way, if they are really losing $1 million and they planned to export 100-200,000 lulavim, that is quite a profit they would have been making! My understanding is that the usual wholesale price to farmers is closer to $3 each than $5-$10.

(h/t Allen L)

"Fatah hasn't thrown the rifle aside"

From JPost:

The US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli “oppression” against the Palestinians, Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said on Sunday.

Tirawi, former commander of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel.

“Fatah hasn’t thrown the rifle aside,” Tirawi told thousands of university students during a rally in Hebron.

Tirawi also criticized the PA leadership for refusing to allow Palestine TV to use the term “Israeli enemy” in its broadcasts.

“Those who prevent the use of the term ‘Israeli enemy’ are acting in violation of national awareness and the principles of people under occupation,” he argued. “They must go away.”

The #1 Middle East media rule is that if a high-ranking Palestinian Arab says something that espouses violence, it is just rhetoric and therefore meaningless. When they say something that can be barely interpreted as pragmatic or peaceful, even if those statements are outnumbered 100-1 by the violent ones, it reflects "reality."