Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 21, 2014

11/21 Links Pt1: Glick: Responding to the slaughter; Blaming Israel for Palestinian Violence Is Racist

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Responding to the slaughter

What we are seeing in Jerusalem today is not simply Palestinian terrorism. It is Islamic jihad. No one likes to admit it. The television reporters insist that this is the worst possible scenario because there is no way to placate it.
There is no way to reason with it.
So what else is new? The horrible truth is that all of the anti-Jewish slaughters perpetrated by our Arab neighbors have been motivated to greater or lesser degrees by Islamic Jew-hatred. The only difference between the past hundred years and now is that today our appeasement-oriented elite is finding it harder to pretend away the obvious fact that we cannot placate our enemies.
No “provocation” by Jews drove two Jerusalem Arabs to pick up meat cleavers and a rifle and slaughter rabbis in worship like sheep and then mutilate their bodies.
No “frustration” with a “lack of progress” in the “peace process,” can motivate people to run over Jewish babies or attempt to assassinate a Jewish civil rights activist.
The reason that these terrorists have decided to kill Jews is that they take offense at the fact that in Israel, Jews are free. They take offense because all their lives they have been taught that Jews should live at their mercy, or die by their sword.

Must Read Of The Day: Blaming Israel for Palestinian Violence Is Racist

I’ve been saying it for years. Never as articulately as this from Alan Johnson of The Telegraph:
Part of the explanation lies in the profound influence that the anti-Zionist ideology (a system of demonising ideas and representations about Israel and the Jews) now exercises in our culture. At the heart of the ideology is a deeply buried, often unconscious, assumption about the dichotomous natures of Israelis and Palestinians that warps our understanding of the conflict. Here it is:Palestinians (and Arabs in general) do not have agency and choice, and so cannot be held accountable and responsible. Israelis do and can; always, and exclusively.
Palestinians are understood as a driven people, dominated by circumstance and emotion, lacking choice, below the age of responsibility, never to be held accountable. Israelis are the opposite; masters of all circumstances, rational and calculating, the root cause of everything, responsible for everything.
It is, palpably, an Orientalist view of the Palestinians as the Other, except this time they are affirmed as noble savages. It’s a bit racist, to be honest. For example, the Liberal Democrat David Ward MP tweeted that the Palestinian synagogue terrorists had been “driven to madness” – which not only removes agency from them but also sanity.
This groupthink is the reason that parts of the media are reluctant to challenge the Palestinian national movement when it is guilty of rejectionism, terrorism, authoritarianism, corruption and the promotion of a vile culture of incitement, demonization and antisemitism. After all, those things are just not the “the Israel story“, are they? As Matt Seaton, comment editor at the New York Times, tweeted recently, his opinion pages will only cover Palestinian racism when “they have [a] sovereign state to discriminate with.”

PMW: PA daily incited against "rabbis" prior to synagogue attack

A week before the brutal murders of four rabbis during prayer and a policeman in a Jerusalem synagogue, the official Palestinian Authority daily published an op-ed that demonized Israel and Jews. It specifically singled out "the rabbis of the secret societies" as the ones giving the instructions to Israel to "set the foundations for an eternal hegemony":
"The danger posed by Israel remains the greatest and most significant of all, and the first [threat] we must come out against. For the Zionist settler ideology does not seek temporary influence or gains, and does not strive to exploit and exhaust resources, but rather sets the foundations for an eternal hegemony based on the instructions of the 'rabbis' of the secret societies. And all this is in order to take revenge on history and their minority and false persecution complex."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 12, 2014]

Mahmoud Abbas Condemns Jerusalem Synagogue Attack; Palestinian Politicians: Rabbis Are Not Civilians

For some reason, there are a lot of stories today about Israel's natural gas reserves.

Ha'aretz reports that the Tamar gas field is looking at a huge expansion.

The Tamar gas field may be upgraded at a cost of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, including the construction of an underwater pipeline to a plant in Egypt run by Spain’s Union Fenosa Gas, the partners that own and operate the field said Thursday.

The partners are considering expanding production with three new wells and upgrading a production platform near Ashkelon, with the aim of doubling the field’s capacity to 20 billion cubic meters annually, said Delek Group, which owns Tamar together with Noble Energy of Texas and Israel’s Isramco and Dor Alon.

The pipeline is contingent on the partners signing a supply deal with UFG, it said. Delek said the expansion program is to be in place by 2017.

TOI reports that Israel is pitching an idea of a pipeline to Europe:

Israel has proposed that EU countries invest in a multi-billion euro pipeline to carry its natural gas to the continent, noting that the supply from Israel would reduce Europe’s current dependence on natural gas from Russia.

A proposal for the “massive” project was introduced by Israel’s Energy Minister Silvan Shalom to energy ministers from Euro-Mediterranean countries who met in Rome earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 2 reported on Thursday.

It said the project would require a multi-billion euro investment from Europe to build a pipeline from Israel’s Mediterranean cost to Cyprus, from where the gas would be carried on to Greece and Italy.

The TV report said Cyprus, Greece and Italy were all supportive of the idea, and that Israel would make a formal presentation of the project to European representatives in Brussels in three weeks’ time.

Jordanian media is warning that Israel's actions in Jerusalem are jeopardizing their own agreement with Israel on gas:

A proposal for Jordan to buy $15 billion (Dh55.08 billion) of natural gas from Israel is facing strong opposition in the kingdom because of the intensifying Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which officials fear could delay or even scupper the deal.

Jordan this month took the unprecedented step of recalling its ambassador after Israeli security forces entered Occupied Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque to subdue protesters angered over a move to end a long-standing deal prohibiting Jewish prayer at the site. It was the first time Jordan has officially recalled its envoy to Israel since the two countries signed a peace treaty 20 years ago.

According to Jordanian officials, the 15-year deal to buy gas from Israel’s offshore Leviathan reservoir remains on track.

However, they warn that any renewed tensions over Al Aqsa would jeopardise all areas of economic cooperation — tacitly including the gas deal, which awaits final government approval.

Opposition to the agreement is building among civil society groups and politicians.

Yahya Mohammad Al Saud, an MP and president of the Jordanian parliamentary committee on Palestine, said: “The Jordanian [people are] not willing to accept this agreement. I will return to riding on a donkey and heating my house with wood before I would consider taking gas from Israel.”

At a protest on Sunday in front of Nepco’s Amman headquarters, protesters held up placards opposing “the Zionist gas deal”.

“You cannot depend on the Israelis; they have breached all agreements. And you know what’s going on in [occupied] Jerusalem and at Al Aqsa,” said Rima Abad, one of the demonstrators. “We cannot give them money to support the [colonies] and the occupation.”

Fellow protester Fadi Nashashibi, an engineer who is among the roughly half of Jordanians who are of Palestinian descent, added: “We are building a very good terminal in Aqaba where we could buy liquid gas from anywhere in the world.”

Jordan is constructing a new liquefied gas terminal in the southern city that could allow it to bring in product from Qatar or elsewhere, but officials and analysts say Israeli gas is the cheapest source.

Ha'aretz also has a somewhat strange article interviewing an energy advisor to the Quartet where he says that it is in Israel's interests to help the PA develop the relatively small gas fields off of Gaza, saying it would help Israel to sell its gas to Muslim countries. Sounds like more wishful thinking than anything else.

Najat Abu-Bakr

In response to the widespread Palestinian Arab anger at Mahmoud Abbas' reported "condemnation" of the terror attack in Jerusalem this week (that he was pressured to issue by the US,) a Fatah official has assured her people that he doesn't really mean it.

From Qudsnet, November 19:

Fatah: President Abbas's Statements on the Jerusalem Operation for Diplomatic Purposes

The Palestine National Liberation Organization, Fatah, has justified Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's statements in which he condemned the operation in Jerusalem yesterday. The organization considered these statements to be political diplomacy, according to a statement by Najat Abu-Bakr, deputy for Fatah in the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC].

Abu-Bakr expressed her belief that President Abbas's behaviour under such conditions is the height of diplomacy because he is required to make statements like everyone else. He is responsible for the entire Palestinian people. She pointed out that the public diplomatic front does not accept bloody statements, but ones that are extremely balanced and well-thought out.

In an interview with Al-Quds radio today, Wednesday [19 November], Abu-Bakr said: "The Palestinian president is forced to speak this way before the world. These statements are responsible for the plight of the Palestinian people." She noted that the objective behind these statements is to light up all the diplomatic signs for the world to wake up to the importance of the Palestinian cause, which the settlers have encroached on through their practices against the Palestinians.

Five Israelis were killed yesterday morning, Tuesday [18 November], and others were injured in an operation of shooting and stabbing with cleavers against extremist Jews in a synagogue on the so-called Agassi Street in the western part of occupied Jerusalem. Two Palestinians were also martyred; they were the two who carried out the attack according to reports by Israeli media sources.

Deputy Abu-Bakr clarified that President Abbas is giving the world more time to resolve the Palestinian cause, which is now going through a state of push and shove, while the scale of confrontation with the occupation is increasing. She noted that President Abbas's statements contain a clear message addressed to those who are aspiring to make Jerusalem a city for the Jews only, that there are forces that will not show any mercy towards the settlers.

She indicated that Israel is currently using a Talmudic policy based on destruction, killing, and saturating the Palestinians with even more death, particularly since the settlers in the West Bank possess 60,000 pieces of weaponry. Yesterday, they had a similar amount added to the weapons they already have, which is a dangerous indicator. Abu-Bakr considered the Israeli victims to be extremist settlers who are storming Al-Aqsa.

Abu-Bakr clarified that the Palestinians today are facing a battle that is spearheaded by the extremists in Israel consisting of rabbis. This situation compels us to always remember that the real base for action is the West Bank, which Israel is desecrating on a daily basis with its crimes.

So all of the news articles that claimed that Abbas condemned the attack were missing most of the story - something they should have known had they looked at the actual words in the statement he released.

And we also can see that the Palestinian Arab leadership is who is turning this into a religious war, essentially saying that rabbis are legitimate targets.

Abu Bakr just justified the synagogue murders in the name of Fatah and the Palestinian Legislative Council - which is part of the PA government.

(Translation by BBC Monitoring via Asher)

Arabs upset at Abbas for his "condemnation" of terror attack

More and more Palestinian Arabs are angry at Mahmoud Abbas for his supposedly pro-Israel actions, including his "condemnation" of the terror attack in the Har Nof synagogue.

A Facebook group called "Abbas does not represent me" has over 140,000 "Likes" so far. It includes this poster showing Abbas as an IDF soldier:

The group is now claiming that Abbas is afflicted with Stockholm syndrome, using as evidence a supposed quote where he says "Israelis are humans like us." Obviously a truly horrible sentiment.

(Clearly, they aren't upset that he might think that Israeli Arabs are human, so the conclusion is that they are aghast at the idea that Jews are human.)

Another image popular in anti-Abbas sites is this one where he is morphed with Netanyahu with the caption "Two sides of the same coin."

Yet another one created after the Jerusalem attack shows Abbas with the caption "The people bless and the leadership condemns."

In other news, an imam from Acre who expressed sympathy for the terror victims reportedly had his car doused in acid last night.

Such a peaceful people. Let's give them a state!

If you still don't believe Iran is antisemitic....

Iran's FARS News agency is semi-official and reportedly has ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guards. It is not going to report anything that the Iranian government does not approve.

Today it published a classic antisemitic conspiracy theory about how Israel controls America through "dual citizens" (really meaning Jews.) But it brings this up by referring to the victims of the Jerusalem synagogue shooting.

The headline tells you all you need to know:

Yes, that's right - the rabbis who were murdered by terrorists are described as "Nazis" by Iranian news.

It says "the way Israeli security forces have been attacking and destroying Palestinian homes and towns in recent days does indeed reveal that they are but a bunch of Nazis with beards, pigtails and black hats."

Funny - I haven't seen too many Haredi police in Israel. But the four praying murder victims were dual nationals, and did have beards and black hats, and that is the hook that FARS uses to spew its hate. (Notice the deliberate choice of the word "pigtails" for sidelocks.)

There is nothing "anti-Zionist" about this article. It is pure bigotry. You know, the kind that Roger Cohen insists doesn't exist in Iran.

11/20 Links Pt2: Sarah Honig: Not Telling It Like It Is; Interview with pro Israel Arab Orim Shimshon

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Not Telling It Like It Is

An Israel Radio reporter recently did random street in interviews in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, where the responders echoed (in fluent Hebrew) Abbas’s characterization of Jews as contaminants.
“Things here will only improve,” argued one fellow, “after the Jews are gone. Yes we want peace, but peace means no Jews.”
Another bystander likewise recommended ethnic cleansing: “Go back to where you came from. Go to Russia, Germany, Poland – anywhere – just not here.”
But there were also kinder voices: “I really don’t like to say so,” remarked a solicitous sort, “but what was done to you in Germany, will be done to you here too.”
These are our peace partners. It’s spine chilling to hear such sentiments from ordinary taxi drivers and greengrocers.
They ring alarmingly authentic.
Day after day, deceptively moderate Abbas hectors that the Jews are out to infest and defile al-Aksa. This is no Johnny-come-lately motif provoked by “Jewish nationalists.” (h/t Yoel)

Michael Lumish: The Third Intifada (Blood Doesn't Lie)

I am getting more than a little tired of constantly having to "absorb" and react to Arab-Muslim violence against my fellow Jews.
These were rabbis praying in a synagogue.
From the perspective of those Arabs and Muslims engaging in these brutal acts of dehumanization and murder against the Jewish people this is a religious war... not a war over land.
They honestly believe that a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount, the holiest site to the Jewish people where David had his temple, is a desecration before Allah and therefore when I went up there a few years ago I was "storming" the very heart of where my people come from.
Many people think that the Jews have it coming for the "Occupation" but there is no occupation.
The word is virtually meaningless in the context of the living of Jews upon Jewish land.
Israel "occupies" Israel like France "occupies" France.
Israel "occupies" Israel like I "occupy" my office.

Interview with Arab pro Israel political activist Orim Shimshon (h/t Daphne Anson)

What we can learn from Palestinian "hasbara"

Here is another heartwarming video about an Arab woman who has had five sons killed by Israel and another five in prison - and yet she manages to move on.It is titled "Undefeatable Woman."

Listen to the music! Listen to her voice cracking! How can Israel do such horrible things to her children?

If you blink, you might miss this shot of a "martyr poster" on her wall that might indicate that her sons were terrorists. (Of course, they were wonderful children - who used to play together!)

Or you might miss the gravestone with the logo of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades:

Israel-haters love to use the word "hasbara" as if it is an epithet. Yet there are far more propaganda videos that whitewash Palestinian terror.

Unfortunately, despite the assertion that Jews (sorry, Zionists now) control Hollywood, the anti-Israel side knows far better than their opponents how to tug at heartstrings. And the way to get people on your side is with emotions, not facts.

This is what so many pro-Israel activists don't get. They know they ae right but they cannot easily convince the college students and casual readers of the media with the facts. The other side, for which facts are optional, use emotional media to get their point across - and once someone's opinion has been swayed by being emotionally manipulated, they don't want to listen to facts that contradict their newfound feelings.

Even more support for terror from UNRWA teachers - and school principals

Continuing on my series that proves that UNRWA teachers actively support terror and war with Israel....

Ali Migdad, a UNRWA teacher in Khan Younis, posts a photo of a baby with a Hamas terrorist headband.

Ayman Nejmeh, a UNRWA teacher in Syria, seems to be a fan of terrorism in a more general sense.

Abo Ahmed Hasan, UNRWA teacher in Lebanon, encourages his students and friends to kidnap Israelis.

Adnan Melhem is a school principal for UNRWA in Syria. One of his heroes is mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, lovingly depicted here.

Then again, what can you expect from an organization whose "human rights" website included antisemitism and who teaches the kids that Jews are dirty?

11/20 Links Pt1: Sarah Honig: The Perils of Peace; In This Struggle, Israel Can Prevail

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: The Perils of Peace

It’s a perplexing fact of our life: anything that remotely and vaguely resembles peace in Israel’s neighborhood is serially shattered once peace negotiations are kick-started. This is how it has invariably been – all the more emphatically so since the advent of Oslo.
According to this unique pattern, unequalled anywhere else, peace overtures are tantamount to harbingers of death and destruction.
Then, once the violence of peace somehow subsides, we briefly luxuriate in the lull of an impasse – the closest we ever get to calm.
But these rare respites inevitably rub do-gooder meddlers the wrong way both in the US and in the EU. With obsessive peevishness they begrudge us our breather. They summon summits, draw road maps, determine deadlines, weave tapestries, formulate fantasies and in short terminate the temporary time-outs.
It’s an inexorable rhythm. After each round of jibber-jabbering about peace comes the carnage.

Mordechai Kedar: In This Struggle, Israel Can Prevail

Israel can withstand and overcome the current wave of violence, which is just another chapter in the struggle against Arab and Islamist hatred. But to do so, there are concrete steps that Israel should take - now.
First of all, Israel must say emphatically: the Palestinian Authority established on the basis of the Oslo Accords is an enemy entity, an enemy whose goal is establishing an Arab state in place of Israel, not alongside Israel, but on its ruins. That is the reason the Oslo Accords were violated so blatantly and thoroughly by the other side, resulting in them being declared null and void..
In addition, Israel must cease funding the PA on the basis of economic agreements derived from the Oslo Accords. There is no other country that funds an enemy entity, and there is no reason for Israel to be the only country that acts in such a delusional manner.
The government of Israel must condemn those among us who were instrumental in giving us the "New Middle East", even those who once held posts of high honor.

Amb. Prosor on CNN International - Jerusalem Terror Attack

By the way, ISIS took over a Libyan city

From CNN:

The black flag of ISIS flies over government buildings. Police cars carry the group's insignia. The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Libya.

Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000, not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the southern shores of the European Union.

The fighters are taking advantage of political chaos to rapidly expand their presence westwards along the coast, Libyan sources tell CNN.

The new UNHRC head slammed the Arab world for not being more vocal in condemning ISIS:

The United Nations’ top human rights official called on the Muslim world to denounce the “monstrous” crimes of the extremist group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, calling its actions both a violation of international law and Islamic tenets.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a member of the Jordanian royal family and the first Muslim to be named high commissioner for human rights, on Tuesday urged the Security Council to back efforts to overturn the Islamic State’s “ideology of violence.”

His speech was equally a message to the Muslim world.

“It is also disturbing how few to nonexistent have been the public demonstrations of anger in the Arab and Muslims worlds over the crimes being perpetrated in Iraq — notwithstanding the clear condemnation by many Arab and Islamic governments,” Mr. Al Hussein said.

Citing the opinion of Muslim clerics, he said the group had violated Shariah in many instances, through conversions, the reintroduction of slavery and the killing of civilians. He said Islam also prohibited the killing of diplomats and emissaries, which could be extended to journalists and aid workers.

Al Hussein has been considered the most reasonable person to head the Human Rights Council in recent years, but while the UN Secretary General and Security Council condemned the Jerusalem bombings, as far as I can tell the Human Rights Council has not.

Which makes his words about ISIS a little hollow.

I could have written five pages for the right hand side portion...

Haaretz Hebrew reports that a Palestinian Arab mounted three shooting attacks in order to be arrested and sent to jail, so the PA would pay him.

Ashraf Issa was building a house but did not have enough cash to complete it. So he decided to shoot at Egged armored buses, claiming that he chose them in order to ensure that no one gets hurt.

After two attacks where he even called up an Arab TV station to accept responsibility, but no arrest, he chose to do his third attack in broad daylight, standing in front of the bus, shooting at the lower part of it and waiting patiently to be arrested.

Because Issa's testimony held up, he was sentenced to a relatively light 7 years and 10 months, and his attack was classified as "economic" and not "nationalistic."

Even though he seems to have meant no harm, this proves that the cash that the PLO pays to terrorists - a part of their budget that is sacred - actually encourages attacks. This makes the PLO complicit in every terror attack since they provide an insurance policy to all Palestinian Arabs who only need to pay by attacking Jews.

It is a sad commentary that the most moral Palestinian Arab in the news is the one who only shoots towards Jews without trying to actually kill them.

(h/t Missing Peace)

Lessons from the sick, depraved antisemitic Arab cartoons

From Ajnad News almost immediately after the slaughter in Har Nof:

The same source, showing clearly who their targets are as well as their murder weapons:

Another cartoon (original source unknown):

Glee at murdering a bearded, blat-hat wearing "soldier":

The same artist showing his bloodlust:

One more, showing that the target is Jews, not "Zionists":

I must point out again that the existence of bloodthirsty antisemitic cartoons is not in itself evidence that Palestinian Arab society is sick. There are plenty of outliers who have access to the Internet who can easily post gruesome, offensive garbage, and fringe groups can be found anywhere.

However, the lack of any public pushback in Arabic against this clear Jew-hatred and bloodlust does indeed indicate that Palestinian society is sick. It might not be fashionable to say it - and Western reporters are loathe to write about it - but there is no visible counterpoint to these repulsive images and the equally abhorrent messages that accompany them. Images like these are celebrated by many, and condoned by the rest, with their silence.

This is the fundamental story of the massacre. For once, the motives are crystal-clear.

It cannot be about "occupation" or "settlements" because the attack was inside the Green Line.
It cannot be about "Al Aqsa" because the people who prayed there are not the types to ascend.
It cannot be about "Israeli oppression" because the victims were not soldiers or reservists.

The facts are undeniable: the terrorists targeted the most Jewish looking people at a synagogue while they were at prayer.

The cartoons illustrate nicely what the west wants to hide: the targets are Jews. Period.

Palestinian Arab cartoons in general routinely depict "Israelis" as a Nazi-style caricatures of a bearded, black-clad men, even though no Israeli leader has ever resembled that person. These victims did. The cartoons taught generations of terrorists that their enemy is the Jews, not Israelis.

The West wants to find excuses for Palestinian terror, to pretend that both sides are part of the problem. But this attack, and these cartoons, combined with the glaring absence of any Palestinians who object to this kind of incitement, reveal the ugly truth: that in the end it is about Jew-hatred. All the other reasons being given by pseudo-intellectuals of "occupation" or "Al Aqsa" or "Gaza" or bus drivers who commit suicide are simply excuses to divert the world's attention from the simple fact that this is really about the world's oldest hate.

Once you realize this you can start to understand the reality and not the spin that we've been fed for decades.

(h/t ADL, Israellycool)

EXCLUSIVE: Jordan's parliament recited a prayer for the murderers!

MP and terror cheerleader Khalil Attieh

On Wednesday, Jordan's parliament offered a prayer in honor of the spirit of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Uday Abu Jamal - the terrorists who slaughtered five people.

The prayer was held as the House of representatives session opened.

MP Khalil Attieh requested his fellow representatives to recite the Fatiha for the "spirit of the heroes."

The Fatiha is the first chapter of the Koran, recited on important occasions.

Attieh further declared that the murders were a "natural reaction to the occupation crimes against the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinians."

In addition, MP Mohammed Al-Qatathh of the House of Representatives issued a statement to the assembly condemning the "Zionist attack on Jerusalem and its people" in the wake of "the heroic operation" on the synagogue in Har Nof.

Moreover, a Jordanian clan opened up a mourning tent in Jordan's capital in honor of the terrorists.

Earlier in the day the Jordanian minister of media affairs pretended to condemn the attacks but only issued a vague statement that the government of Jordan "condemns the targeting of civilians, and denounce all acts of violence and terrorism against civilians, no matter who or why it is done." The condemnation was not nearly as specific as the honor for the terrorists given in Parliament.

Perhaps the US State Department should be asked to comment on how our ally's representatives praise terror attacks.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

11/19 Links Pt2: The Third Intifada is About the Post-Two-State Future; Temple Mount Status Quo?

From Ian:

The Third Intifada is About the Post-Two-State Future

The two-state solution is, effectively, dead. It was mortally wounded long before today’s terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, which marks a third intifada. The final straw came with the Gaza war this past summer, when Hamas rockets and tunnels showed why it would be insane to let Palestinians to rule more than a portion of the West Bank. The Obama administration’s addiction to pressuring Israel has also destabilized diplomacy.
But the attack on the synagogue in Har Nof sends a different message: namely, that Jews and Arabs may not be able to live together easily even in the same country. There are areas of coexistence–in Haifa, for example, where locals joke that they get along because Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed never came there. There are also Arabs who serve with distinction in the Israeli military, and at the highest levels of the Israeli government.
Yet that could be more difficult in future. David Brinn of the Jerusalem Post wrote candidly today: “When two of the regular staffers entered my office in the afternoon to empty the trash bin and replace it with a new nylon bag, I found myself for the first time tensing up and watching their every move out of the corner of my eye.” His feelings are, no doubt, shared by many well-meaning Jewish Israelis–and reciprocated by Arab Israelis, too.

Sweden’s Gaza refugee contradiction

Now that Sweden has assessed that Palestine meets the criteria of a state, is it prepared to address this longstanding Palestinian refugee narrative, along with UNRWA’s role in perpetuating it? The way to do so would be to issue a clear statement that Palestinians living in Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza) would no longer be recognized as “refugees.”
If the Swedes fail to take this simple and logical move, the implication would be that their recognition of Palestine is intended not to promote peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine, but rather to perpetuate dangerous and irredentist policies that have long characterized the Palestinian narrative, not to mention the refugee agency that purports to speak in its name.

Spanish Parliament Recognizes 'Palestine' After Jerusalem Terror Attack

The lower house of the Spanish parliament, the Congress of Deputies, passed a resolution Tuesday to recognize a Palestinian state. The vote came in the wake of a gruesome Palestinian terror attack Tuesday morning that targeted Jews praying at a synagogue in West Jerusalem, which drew widespread international condemnation.
Reuters reports that the resolution received the support of all political parties. The support for Palestinian statehood follows similar resolutions in the UK, Sweden, and Ireland, and is conditional on a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
It is merely symbolic–but on a day of terror, is a potent symbol indeed.

Israel decries Spanish vote on recognizing Palestine

“The declaration of the Spanish parliament only distances the chance of reaching an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, because it encourages the Palestinians to become more extreme in their positions,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
“It would have been better if the Spanish parliament had instead chosen to do the right thing by condemning the abominable slaughter carried out by inflamed Palestinians in a synagogue in Jerusalem.”
Late on Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu accused the international community of ignoring the bloodshed and seeking instead to reward the Palestinians, in a thinly veiled reference to the vote.
“Unfortunately, there are some who are trying even now to give the Palestinians a prize… of a Palestinian state, which doesn’t even recognize the Jewish state,” he said.
“We won’t put up with this.”