Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, September 06, 2015

09/06 Links: What about the Iran lobby?; How would you vote if your children’s lives were at stake?

From Ian:

Howard Jacobson: Corbyn may say he's not anti-Semitic, but associating with the people he does is its own crime

Still I will not call it anti-Semitism. The truism that criticism of Israel does not equate to anti-Semitism is repeated ad nauseam. Nor, necessarily, does it. But those who leave out the “necessarily” ask for a universal immunity. Refuse it and they trammel you in the “How very dare you” trap. They are, they say, being blackmailed into silence. The opposite is the truth. It is they who are the blackmailers, intimidating anyone who dares criticise their criticism.
Alone of prejudices, anti-Zionism is sacrosanct. How very dare we distinguish the motivation of one sort from another? Or question, in any instance, an anti-Zionist’s good faith? In fact, what determines whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic is the nature of it. Question Israel’s conduct of recent wars and you won’t find many Jews, in Israel or outside it, who disagree with you. Join Hamas in calling for the destruction of the Jewish state, as the prime instigator of all evil, and you’re on shakier ground.
In an apparent softening of party tone, Corbyn’s warm-up man, the journalist Owen Jones, recently reprimanded the Left for its ingrained anti-Semitism. Welcome words, but they will remain only words so long as the Corbynite Left – and indeed the not-so Corbynite Left – refuses to acknowledge the degree to which anti-Semitism is snarled up in the before and after of Israelophobia. The Stop The War Coalition is a sort of home to Jew-haters because its hate music about Israel is so catchy. It simplifies a complex and heartbreaking conflict, it elides causes and effects, it perpetuates a fable that flatters one side and demonises another, it ignores all instances of intransigence and cruelty but one, inflaming hatred and enabling the very racism it declares itself opposed to.
Let’s forget whether or not anti-Semitism is the root of this. It is sufficient that it is the consequence. Face that, Corbyn, or the offence you take at any imputation of prejudice is the hollow hypocrite’s offence, and your protestations of loving peace and justice, no matter who believes them, are as ash.

"Palestine" is "The Jewish People’s State” under International Law

Arab irredentists have never accepted recognition of the Jewish state. The recognition of a state may be express or tacit. The latter results from any act that implies the intention of recognizing the new state. Approval of the League of Nations Mandate is such an act based on the the summaries shown in the Memo of the British Foreign Office of December 19, 1917 and that of the American summary circulated at the Paris Peace Talks and approved at San Remo.
The Arabs have expressed their dissatisfaction by threats of violence, actual violence and by fraud. The usual fraud is carried out by publication of bogus legal opinions claiming to show the illegality under international law of Jewish settlements and occupation outside the Green Line and claiming the unilateral right to secede from the Jewish state.
Why arguments based on international law? How many people who pass you on the street know anything at all about international law. Repeated often enough to them it becomes a “poetic truth” that can’t be dented by facts, reason or logic. Judea, Samaria, and East Jerusalem may be occupied, but it is not a “belligerent occupation” as defined in the Regulations under the Hague Convention, nor does voluntary settlement of Jews in these areas, impose the obligations on Israel that it would if they had been deported or transferred.
These are areas that were liberated in 1967 to fulfill the status intended for them at San Remo in 1920 as a part of a Jewish People’s State.

David Horovitz: Europe’s challenge: How to prevent Islamic extremism entering along with its victims

As Europe grapples with a migrant crisis, its leaders might ask themselves if they could have done more to alleviate some of its causes
It’s hard to imagine the West condemning us now for choosing, over the past few years, to seal off the border with Egypt in order to prevent the tens of thousands of African asylum-seekers who made their way to the only land-accessible democracy in the area swelling into the millions. It’s harder now to dismiss those Israeli leaders who contended that migration across a porous border could remake Israel’s demographic balance.
Should we allow people of Palestinian origin to cross from Syria and Lebanon into the West Bank, as PA President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded? Plainly, that would be easier if we were at peace with the Palestinians, rather than deadlocked, and if Abbas had publicly renounced the demand for a “right of return” that wields demographics as a weapon against Israel.
Too many questions; too few answers. And the validation of a familiar assertion: The Middle East is the dinner guest who never goes home. Ignore it or seek to disengage from it at your peril.

Anyone who knows the least little bit about the Arab-Israel war, as portrayed in the general media, knows that it is done so in a manner that is toxic to Jews.

The question is, given the number of violent national conflicts all around the world, why must this one be so utterly acrimonious among people who, as they say, do not have a dog in the fight? All around the world, with the possible exception of parts of the Asian Pacific Rim, people seem to care very deeply about Jewish behavior toward Palestinian-Arabs while not caring at all about the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, including many Palestinian-Arabs residing there.

And do I really need to reference the death toll in recent years in the Congo? That number is in the millions, but nobody outside of the region cares a whit.

Please understand that I do not hold myself innocent in the question of the miserableness, toxicity, and the just plain stupidity of the conversation around the Arab-Israel conflict. The question is, why is it that conversation so toxic?

The answer, in part, is postcolonial theory.

The people who are driving the conversation are anti-Jewish / anti-Israel ideologues of the sort that shake their fists for BDS. They honestly view Israel as a white, western, racist, colonialist, European outpost in the Middle East... or some combination of this highly dubious rhetorical gibberish. This is due, at least in part, to significant twentieth-century thinkers like Michelle Foucault and Edward Said.

Foucault and Said
Foucault suggested that scholarly narratives were not so much about “truth” but about the maintenance of hegemonic systems of power through constructing necessary epistemologies and ontologies, or ways of thinking and being. Said, following Foucault, claimed that western “Orientalist” scholarship, and thus western views on the Arab world, were about the maintenance of western power over the "occupied" Middle East.

This particular way of viewing knowledge - as little more than part of the prevailing system of imperial control - dovetails with the postcolonial view that divides the world into Occupiers and the Occupied or white, western oppressors and their victims. The historical source of this relationship allegedly derives from the old racist, European imperial adventures and, we are told, continues to this day with the United States representing the foremost oppressor on the world stage. It is this that Barack Obama thinks that it is his job to undue. Israel is viewed as an instrument of this imperialism, as well as a current example of an "apartheid state" that must be shunned and opposed.

The Jewish State must therefore be struggled against not merely for this or that policy toward the Palestinian-Arabs, but because in its essence, it is viewed as a racist, colonialist enterprise similar to, say, the British in India or the French in Indo-China. The problem with Britain in India was not this or that royal policy toward the indigenous population but its very presence controlling other people's lives and land. The problem was imperialism, period, and not merely any particular imperial policy.

Israel, of course, does not actually fit the postcolonial model for the obvious reason that people cannot illegitimately, or illegally, "colonize" their own land. In order to make it fit anti-Israel ideologues twist Jewish history in order to cram it into the model. They maliciously misinterpret Israeli behavior in order to suggest that this behavior is not a reaction to real events like, say, Qassam rockets, but is rather an expression of the ugly, essential nature of the Jews in the Middle East, if not Jews more generally.

Israel is either a white, western, outpost of imperialism or it is not. Postcolonial theory claims that it is and postcolonial theory is the ghost that hovers behind the conversation, that gives the anti-Israel people their intellectual validation. But how can the movement for Jewish self-determination and self-defense be "imperialist" when we know that the vast majority, virtually the entirety, of European Jews who made aliyah did so to escape late 19th century Russian pogroms and, later, that minor bit of nastiness in early-mid twentieth-century Germany?

Thus, on its face, the origins of the Jewish state are not imperialist and in order to make it so an inversion is necessary. The Jews who fled Russian pogroms and, later, the Holocaust, must be viewed as the oppressors. The Jewish immigrants did not arrive at the behest of any European power. They did not ride with any army of conquest, nor were they the functionaries of any foreign government seeking domination. They came to the Land of Israel as an oppressed people hoping to build a community for themselves and their children on the land where Jews have lived for well over three thousand years.

The actual history therefore undermines post-colonial theory in regards Israel and renders it useless.

The only way to make it work is to start with the presumptions of the theory and then twist the history to conform to, and thus confirm, the theory. But scholarship doesn't work that way. The irony is that post-colonial theory has Marxist roots, but Marx did not consider himself an “idealist,” one who starts with an ideology hovering over the material facts, but just the opposite. Marx thought of himself as a corrective to the German idealist tradition by starting with the material facts of history and drawing his conclusions from those facts, not the other way around, as the current post-colonialists do.

Furthermore, since Israel and Zionism are considered in their very nature corrupt, anything that Israel does is viewed as evidence of that corruption. Let’s take the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, for example. Israel was there with an absolutely amazing medical team that saved G-d knows how many lives, yet there are plenty of people who insist that this was nothing but a cheap PR stunt to take attention away from the Gaza strip.

In this way, it doesn't matter what Israel does because it is already condemned in its essence as an evil, racist, imperialist, regime and its behavior, whatever that behavior might be, is conducted not from actual circumstances, but as an expression of its corrupt essence.

And this is ultimately what makes the conversation around the Arab-Israel conflict so vitriolic. The ideology, by necessity, turns the vast majority of world Jewry into the enemy.

So, of course, discussion around the Arab-Israel conflict is toxic.

The prevailing anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, postcolonial ideology rattles the Jewish cage.

So, what would anyone expect?


Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

Hamas announced the "accidental" death of one of its "mujahadin," Sakher Nabil, without saying how he died.

Arabic message boards mostly said that he drowned while doing an exercise as a frogman for Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades.

But one person on the boards says that he witnessed what happened - and he swears that Nabil mishandled some explosives which ended up blowing his head off.

The photos of his funeral I found don't include any of his dead body, so perhaps that is true.

Time to hand out the candy!

Another UNRWA teacher who supports axing Jews to death

On the same day that four rabbis were murdered while at prayer in Har Nof, Jerusalem, UNRWA teacher Eiad Hindi posted this:

The text says:

This is the way
#Intifada_of_Jerusalem
#Jerusalem's_Elite
The time is near, oh Jerusalem

Will UNRWA condemn this posting? They sure haven't condemned any of the many others I've uncovered!

And I still have more...

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

From Ma'an:

A number of Palestinians were injured Saturday morning after a "dispute" erupted at a Fatah conference in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses said.

Witnesses told Ma'an that Fatah members threw stones at people taking part in the conference, injuring at least three, including a woman.

Ahmad Shahwan, a member of Fatah in Khan Younis, told Ma'an that "some angry members whose names were not included in the conference's list threw rocks at the conference, injuring a member."

Shahwan added that the Fatah conference took place in Khan Younis with 530 members from 12 regions across the Gaza Strip, with the intent of electing 32 members for the leadership of Fatah in Khan Younis.

Palestine Press Agency fills in the details. The followers of Mohammed Dahlan were the ones who were incensed that they were not included in the Fatah conference and voting.

Dahlan is a rival to Mahmoud Abbas who has been stripped of his positions by the PA president.

09/05 Links: 43 years ago today - Israeli athletes murdered in Munich by Palestinian terrorists

From Ian:

43 years ago today - Israeli athletes murdered in Munich by Palestinian terrorists

It was 43 years ago to the day when a group of armed terrorists from the radical Palestinian faction Black September snuck into the section of the Olympic Village housing the Israeli athletes and took 11 of them hostage during the Munich summer games.
After the Israeli government refused the terrorists' demands to release jailed Palestinians, the athletes were then ushered to an airport, where German authorities staged a failed attempt to extricate the athletes.
All 11 Israeli hostages were killed, while a number of Black September gunmen died in gunfights with German police.
The Anti-Defamation League on Friday paid homage to the murdered athletes.
“We remember one of the darkest days in modern Olympic history and commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the tragic murder of the entire Israeli Olympic team at the hands of Palestinian terrorists,” ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt said.

EU close to decision on labeling products from Israeli settlements

The European Union will soon decide on labeling rules to inform consumers if imported Israeli products come from Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territories, the EU's top diplomat said on Saturday.
Some EU countries, including Britain, already issue guidance to shops so consumers can see if goods are made in the settlements that most countries consider illegal, rather than within Israel's recognized borders.
The European Commission has to decide how to extend these guidelines to all the 28 countries of the bloc.
"The work is close to being finished but it is still ongoing," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
The EU has been debating the labels for several years but has never put in place any measure, wary of upsetting attempts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. (h/t Yenta Press)

American Muslims For Palestine: Inventing a heritage

American Muslims for Palestine is looking for "Palestinian" artifacts to display at their November convention.
Their call for "coins and currency' is illustrated by the coins of the colonial power, the British Mandate.
No one doubts that the the British mandate for Palestine existed, and its unclear how exhibiting coinage that proclaims the "Land of Israel" supports the AMP claim of the historic existence of a Palestinian people.
A quick search of the New York Historical index shows that common use of the term "Palestinian" did not begin until 1970.
American Muslims for Palestine knows the true history of the coinage- in their promotional material advertising their conference they deliberately cut out the Hebrew writing.
After all, you cannot 'reclaim a narrative' with eliminating an existing one.

09/04 Links Pt2: BDS proves "ignorance is power"; Will Chris Gunness ever be held to account?

From Ian:

Elliott Abrams: UNRWA Again: UN Employees Incite Hatred

This is our tax money at work: the United States is by far the largest contributor to UNRWA, at over $400 million.
This discovery is a test both of the UNRWA and United Nations leadership, and of the Obama administration. This kind of behavior is absolutely intolerable, right? So now what happens? Does UNRWA discipline or fire these individuals? Does Ban ki-Moon step in?
Nope, not so far. The only reaction has been–you probably guessed it–attacks on UN Watch by UNRWA’s spokesman. Not a word about these postings or the employees.
The next step should be action by the State Department and by Samantha Power, our UN ambassador, demanding that the UN wake up. The State Department actually has an assistant secretary whose sole duty is supervising the United Nations, and even a Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. The next step should be simple: to contact top officials at UN headquarters in New York, and the head of UNRWA, Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl. Either such conduct is tolerated or it is not. Either UNRWA’s reaction is disciplinary moves against these individuals, or it attacks UN Watch. If the latter–UNRWA defends these acts inciting and celebrating violence and terror, defends those who are responsible for them, and assaults UN Watch for finding the truth–the United States should suspend payments to UNRWA. We should not be financing the spreading of hatred by UN employees.
It ought to be simple.

Dexter Van Zile: Will Chris Gunness ever be held to account?

Take a look at Gunness’s Twitter feed, which is followed by anti-Israel journalists throughout the world. There is little, if any condemnation of Hamas in his Tweets, but there are regular denunciations of Israeli policy and actions.
For example, Gunness posted a Tweet calling on Israel to “lift the blockade.” How about asking Hamas to stop endangering Palestinian children with its reckless attacks on Israel? How about asking Hamas to stop teaching children to hate Jews?
Gunness’ behavior is a clear and obvious violation of UNRWA’s stated policy regarding neutrality, which declares that, “neutrality is .. a core obligation and value of UN staff.” (Gunness himself wrote about this policy for the Huffington Post in 2011.)
Recently, UN Watch drew attention to antisemitic Facebook postings of a number of UNRWA employees, some of whom appear to be members of Hamas -- a clear violation of UNRWA’s so-called policies regarding neutrality.
How did Gunness respond? By attacking UN Watch and asking for information about UN Watch’s funding.
In response to these outrages, an activist from California has started a petition on Change.org calling for Gunness to be investigated for his violations of UNRWA’s policies on neutrality.
Somebody needs to do something. Gunness’ use of UN resources to assist in Hamas’s cognitive war against the Jewish state is simply intolerable.

UNRWA’s Chris Gunness Offered Lucrative Job as Pro Wrestling Referee (satire)

Based on the keen situational awareness and managerial oversight that he has exhibited at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), World Wrestling Entertainment, Incorporated has extended an offer of employment as a referee to Mr. Christopher Gunness. Mr. Gunness, who has lately been busy investigating where his critics get their money from, was unavailable for comment, but World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) spokesperson Robert C. spoke with the Daily Freier earlier today. “A lack of situational awareness and organizational leadership like Mr. Gunness provides day in and day out…….that doesn’t come around evey day. If WWE wants to continue to build its brand, it needs to jump on talent like this.” When the Daily Freier asked the WWE if there was one event that convinced the organization to extend an offer to Mr. Gunness, Robert noted “When Chris was presented with evidence from UN-WATCH of UNRWA employees calling for the death of Jews on Facebook, and countered with a call to investigate UN-WATCH.……he just exhibited exactly what we look for in a good referee: focus on ‘the Big Picture’…….Either that or he’s full of crap and simply hates Israel. Hard to tell.”

Since Channel 10 of Israel picked up on my reporting of UNRWA teachers' support for terror and antisemitism on Facebook, other media have been slowly but surely starting to cover the story. Here are some recent articles and op-eds critical of UNRWA:

Jerusalem Post
TheTower
Breitbart News
JP Updates
i24News
Opinion Journal (WSJ)
TribuneLive
TheBlaze (1)
TheBlaze (2)
Breaking Israel News
Jewish Press (1)
Jewish Press (2)
Council on Foreign Relations (Elliot Abrams)
Same article in Newsweek
UN Watch
The Commentator
Israel National News
Algemeiner (1)
Algemeiner (2)
Times of Israel

German rally to #FreeDolphinFromHamas today

A hilarious German Facebook page was set up to demand that Hamas free the Mossad spy dolphin.

"From the river to the sea, all dolphins shall be free."

There was a rally planned for today in Alexanderplatz, Berlin. Organizer Alexander Nabert told Vice News "Come on Friday to join with many dolphin solidarity and Zionist friends together to demand the release of our floating comrades . He has been in captivity of terrorists for far too long -we are not even sure if he gets enough water. Or worse: Perhaps they are even Waterboarding him. And Merkel remains silent! We are on the Alexanderplatz, our solidarity with all political prisoners and Mossad agents. In the end, dolphins are only human."

09/04 Links Pt1: Palestinian prevents lynching of 5 American yeshiva students; Glick: A glorious defeat

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: A glorious defeat

We will only be able to measure AIPAC’s power after the 2016 elections.
Given that the nuclear pact will fail, there will be plenty of Democrats challengers who will be eager to use their Democratic incumbent opponents’ support for Obama’s nuclear madness against them. AIPAC’s public fight against the deal has set the conditions for it to extract a political price from its supporters who preferred Obama to US national security.
If AIPAC extracts a price from key Democratic lawmakers who played crucial roles in approving the nuclear deal with Iran, it will prevent Obama from turning support for Israel into a partisan issue and emerge strengthened from the fight.
On Wednesday, after Maryland’s Sen. Barbara Mikulski became the 34th senator to support Obama’s nuclear deal, PBS’s senior anchorwoman Gwen Ifill tweeted, “Take that, Bibi.”
Obama’s win is Bibi’s loss. Bibi failed to convince 12 Democratic senators and 44 Democratic congressmen to vote against the head of their party. But by fighting against this deal, Netanyahu removed the main obstacle that kept Israel from taking action that will prevent Iran from going nuclear. He reduced Obama’s power to harm Israel.
The fight strengthened American and American- Jewish opposition to the nuclear deal, paving the way for a Democratic renewal after Obama leaves office. And finally, Israel’s public battle against Obama’s deal paved the way its abrogation by his successor.
All in all, a rather glorious defeat.

Palestinian prevents lynching of 5 lost American yeshiva students in Hebron

A Palestinian man saved five American yeshiva students from Brooklyn from being lynched in Hebron after they took a wrong turn Thursday on their way to the Cave of the Patriarchs.
The students entered the Palestinian neighborhood of Jabal Johar after having been misdirected there by the navigational system Waze, according to security sources.
Palestinians on the street who saw their car immediately threw stones and a firebomb at the vehicle. The yeshiva students were able to escape from the car before the Palestinians torched it.
A Palestinian resident of the neighborhood helped rescue them and sheltered them in his apartment.
Fayez Abu Hamdiyeh, who lives in the neighborhood, said he let five Jewish “settlers” into his house after he noticed they were being chased by Palestinian youths.
He said the “settlers” told him that they had entered the neighborhood with their car before being pelted with stones.
Abu Hamdiyeh said he used the mobile phone of one of the students to phone the police and ask for help.

VIDEO: How the IDF extracted American yeshiva students in Hebron

New footage shows Israel Defense Forces soldiers extracting five American yeshiva students from Hebron on Thursday, after they became trapped in the West Bank city following riots triggered by their presence.
The five were given shelter by a local Palestinian when their car was set alight after a wrong turn en route to the Tomb of the Patriarchs took them into the predominantly Arab southern part of the city.
The grainy video shows the five, dressed in a traditional ultra-Orthodox manner, being instructed by the soldiers to thank the man who rescued them. One of the men, with clearly visible blood stains on his shirt, blows a kiss in the Palestinian man’s direction.
“We are evacuating you now in ambulances in the direction of Kiryat Arba, okay?” says one of the soldiers, referring to the Jewish settlement on the outskirts of Hebron.
The footage also shows soldiers securing the area around the house, before bringing yeshiva students outside and into a waiting Israel Police jeep.
Two of the students, from Brooklyn in New York were lightly-to-moderately injured in the riot that ensued after they accidentally entered the area.
Faiz Abu Hamadiah, 51, took the men into his home and dispatched local youths to inform the IDF at a nearby checkpoint of their presence.

Did "collaborators" in Gaza manage to escape to Israel?

Ma'an reported late Wednesday:

Israeli forces on Wednesday afternoon detained nine Palestinians inside of Israel after the group attempted to cross the border east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.

Witnesses said a young man, two women, and six children were detained after sneaking into Israel from al-Faraheen village.

Palestinian security forces were present at the scene after the incident, witnesses added.

This is unusual. Sometimes Gazans try to sneak into Israel for work, sometimes for terror attacks, but a large group of mostly women and children trying to enter Israel is, as far as I know, unprecedented.

Palestine Press Agency, a pro-Fatah site, claims that there were actually two families who crossed - and that they were families of spies for Israel.

It names the heads of the two households, Basil Karnafeh and Jamil Nasir, along with nine other family members, saying that this was coordinated with Israel to save them after they had acted as spies.

This sounds plausible.

The news item goes on to claim that most "collaborators" who manage to get to Israel end up living in squalor that is far worse than Gaza, abandoned by their Israeli overlords, and that Israel only pretends to help them in order to help the morale of the spies left behind in Gaza.

Poll shows PalArabs use "peace" as a stage to destroy Israel

From Fikra Forum:

The long-term Palestinian political perspective has long been a subject of much polemical speculation – but without much evidence on either side. Do most Palestinians hope for a small state of their own at peace with Israel, or do they still aspire to reclaim all of Palestine someday? Now an actual survey, conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion in the West Bank and Gaza from June 7 to 19, provides some solid answers to this intriguing question. The survey was based on personal interviews with a representative, geographic probability sample of 504 West Bankers and 413 Gazans, yielding a statistical margin of error of approximately 4.5 percent in each area.

Overall, responses demonstrate a dichotomous set of attitudes: some tactical flexibility toward Israel today, but much potential for irredentism in the future. The tactical flexibility—even on recognition of “the Jewish people,” or restrictions on the Palestinian refugee “right of return”—was highlighted in a previous report. One other important sign of short-term pragmatism is a willingness among around half the Palestinian public, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, to share sovereignty over Jerusalem with Israel. Another sign of tactical flexibility is that among West Bankers, the large majority (79 percent) say that, “in the current situation,” they would like a highway through that territory which bypasses Jerusalem altogether.

For the longer term, however, many Palestinians have a much more maximalist orientation. Unlike other surveys, this survey asked about three different time frames: the next 5 years, the coming 30-40 years, and the distant future 100 years from now. The results are instructive, suggesting a widespread expectation of “two stages” rather than “two states” in the long term.

Even in the next five years, a plurality pick “reclaiming all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea” rather than “a two-state solution” as the “main Palestinian national goal.” In the West Bank, the margin is 41 percent vs. 29 percent; in Gaza, surprisingly, the margin is much closer, with 50 percent opting for all of Palestine, compared with 44 percent in favor of a two-state solution. But the difference is largely accounted for by a third option: a “one-state solution in all of the land in which Palestinians and Jews have equal rights.” Among West Bankers, 18 percent select that option; among Gazans, just 5 percent do.

From a normative perspective, too, Palestinian attitudes are clearly maximalist. In the West Bank, 81 percent say that all of historic Palestine “is Palestinian land and Jews have no rights to the land.” In Gaza, that proportion is even higher: 88 percent.

Nevertheless, looking ahead to the next generation, only one-fourth of Palestinians in either the West Bank or Gaza expect Israel to “continue to exist as a Jewish state” in 30-40 years. Another fourth think Israel will become “a binational state of Jews and Palestinians.” And 38 percent of West Bankers, along with 53 percent of Gazans, think Israel will no longer exist at all, even as a binational state. That group is about evenly split between those who predict that Israel “will collapse from internal contradictions,” or that “Arab or Muslim resistance will destroy it.”

As for the really long-term view, a century away, a mere 12 percent of West Bankers and 15 percent of Gazans say Israel will still exist then as a Jewish state. In the West Bank, a plurality (44 percent) think Israel will either collapse or be destroyed; although 20 percent quite reasonably say they don’t know what will happen in 100 years. In Gaza, an absolute majority (63 percent) anticipate the destruction or collapse of Israel within that distant horizon.

We have seen surveys like this before across the years - but the media ignore them.

I even made a video about a previous poll showing the same attitudes that no one wants to admit:

Reason #9328 why peace is impossible.

UNRWA teacher calls for violent overthrow of Israel

My series of UNRWA teachers who publicly advocate positions that are against UNRWA 's stated standards continues....

Fuad Abd AlRahim ("the merciful") is a teacher for UNRWA in Jordan. He featured this graphic:

"We will return, no matter how long it takes"

This is directly against UN's support for a two state solution, And it is what UNRWA teachers emphasize to their kids.

Remember that many UNRWA schools themselves incorporate maps of "Palestine" in their very logos that eliminate Israel - some of them with the UN logos prominently displayed alongside their explicit desire to destroy a UN member state:

Authentic indigenous names?. Sounds good to me! (ElderToons)

From an idea by Ian:

09/03 Links Pt2: SodaStream CEO blasts BDS as anti-Semitic; Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

From Ian:

On way out of West Bank, SodaStream CEO blasts BDS as anti-Semitic

With two weeks to go before it clears out its controversial factory in Ma'aleh Adumin in favor of one in the Negev desert, Sodastream CEO Daniel Birnbaum on Thursday skewered the BDS movement as anti-semitic.
"It's propaganda, it's politics, it's hate, it's anti-Semitism. It’s all the bad stuff we don’t want to be part of," Birnbaum said.
The SodaStream factory has been a central target for the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, which claimed the decision to move out of the West Bank settlement as a major victory. Birnbaum, however, said that the decision was strictly business. Moreover, he said that the factory's presence in the West Bank was good for Palestinians.
“Sodastream should have been encouraged in the West Bank by the BDS, if they truly cared about the Palestinian people. Because we were the most advanced, technological and largest factory in the West Bank, period. We were the largest private employer of Palestinians in the world, period. How can you fight that? How can you argue that's bad for the Palestinians?”
Birnbaum went on to say that he had offered to pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority, but that Palestinian economy minister would not even take a phone call with him.

So, you think BDSers would end their campaign if Israel left the West Bank? Think again.

First, they evidently have no real interest in improving the lives and economic conditions of actual Palestinians.
As Peter Beaumont pointed out in his report on the SodaStream move (SodaStream leaves West Bank as CEO says boycott antisemitic and pointless, Sept. 3), hundreds of Palestinians may lose their jobs due to the closure of the plant in Mishor Adumim.
SodaStream said it employed up to 600 Palestinians there, and had sought to transfer their jobs to the Israeli plant. But Birnbaum said Israel had granted only 130 work permits so far due to security issues and many likely would lose their jobs.
Ali Jafar, a shift manager from a West Bank village who has worked for SodaStream for two years, said: “All the people who wanted to close [SodaStream’s West Bank factory] are mistaken. … They didn’t take into consideration the families.”
Second, contrary to claims of movement leaders, like Omar Barghouti, they clearly don’t ‘merely’ want Israel to withdraw back to 1949 boundaries and an “end discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel”. The Guardian report notes the following response by Barghouti to news that the West Bank SodaStream factory is closing:
“This is a clear-cut BDS victory against an odiously complicit Israeli company,” said Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the movement. He said it would continue to target SodaStream because its new factory is located in an area where Israel has in the past proposed to resettle Bedouin Arabs. The company employs more than 300 Bedouins.
To recap: One of the most prolific BDS leaders acknowledged that his movement will continue boycotting the fizzy drink maker, despite the fact that their new plant is within Israel proper and employs hundreds of Bedouin citizens of Israel. As with Palestinians at the old plant in the West Bank, it’s clear that BDSers have no moral concerns over the potential loss of hundreds of Arab Israeli jobs if the new plant near Rahat would similarly close.

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

The UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is currently staffed with 8600 people handling 34 million refugees from 125 countries. The number of refugees continues to swell each day and hundreds of others die before they even reach safety. In 2014 alone, an estimated 2900 refugees died in transit. In 2014, UNHCR estimates that it will assist over 41 million people. Its biennial budget is $5.3 billion.
The Swell and Permanence of UNRWA
Meanwhile, the UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, has continued to stretch its “temporary” existence for 66 years. This distinct refugee agency for Palestinians manages virtually no refugees anymore, but instead handles services for 5.4 million children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who left Palestine in 1948.
The UNRWA staff stands at 30,000, or 3.5 times the staff that the rest of the world gets for actual refugees. It services only 13% of the people that UNHCR assists.
Unlike the refugees serviced by UNHCR, the Palestinians speak the language and have skills. The UNRWA infrastructure and systems have been established for decades. Yet, the UNRWA biennial budget is over $2 billion, or $370 per person serviced compared to $130 for each UNHCR refugee who needs real and immediate services and infrastructure such as shelters, medical facilities and schools.