JPost Editorial: The mouse that roars
As suspense builds over whether US President Donald Trump will fulfill his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel’s capital, the Palestinian leadership is pressing panic buttons daily, appealing to the world community to agree with its absurd policy that the Jewish people’s capital for 3,000 years is in occupied Palestinian territory.
The Palestinian Authority’s escalating campaign to delegitimize Israel accompanies its ongoing incitement of terrorism. But the PA last week exceeded previous attempts at bullying the world community with delusional threats of the consequences of the embassy move.
This was achieved by Fatah Central Committee member Nasser al-Kidwa, who threatened to downgrade the PA’s ties with the US if Trump moves the embassy to Jerusalem.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas added that the Palestinian leadership would also declare that the US is no longer a broker in the Middle East peace process and “turn to the UN” – as if the Palestinian tail has not been wagging the UN dog for years.
“If that [the relocation of the embassy] takes place, the Palestinian side would have to sever its ties with the official staff of the illegal US Embassy in Jerusalem. In addition to that, there is the issue of the Palestinian political representative’s office in Washington; it would also be necessary to close [it],” Kidwa told the Palestinian daily Al-Quds, adding that the Palestinians would have “no other choice.”
No other choice? How about continuing to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the US? More to the point, how about admitting that the Arab refusal of the UN’s original two-state solution in 1947 has resulted in decades of war and suffering by both peoples? Abbas’s continued refusal of Israeli offers to negotiate the establishment of a Palestinian state has made it clear that he is incapable of making a sincere effort to rectify that historic mistake.
PMW: Fatah proud of suicide terrorist: Her pure body exploded into pieces in the Zionists’ faces
Referring to suicide terrorist Wafa Idris - who murdered 1 and wounded over 100 Israelis in 2002 - as "a daughter of the Fatah Movement," Mahmoud Abbas' party praised her and her "operation" on Facebook. Fatah's post highlighted the fact that her suicide bombing was carried out "so that her pure body would explode into pieces in the Zionists' faces":Sheri Oz: Punctuating History And Narratives In The Middle East
Posted text: "Today [Jan. 27, 2017] is the 15th anniversary of the first Martyrdom-seeking operation of the Al-Aqsa Intifada (i.e., PA terror campaign 2000-2005), which was carried out by Martyrdom-seeker Wafa Idris, a daughter of the Fatah Movement. She planted an explosive belt on her body on Jaffa Street in occupied Jerusalem, so that her pure body would explode into pieces in the Zionists' faces. One Israeli was killed in the operation and an additional 90 were wounded (sic., over 100), and it came in response to the assassination operation against commander Raed Al-Karmi (i.e., terrorist, responsible for murder of 9)."
Text on image: "First female Martyrdom-seeker
Martyr (Shahida) Wafa Idris
Jan. 28 (sic., 27), 2002"
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 27, 2017]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented Fatah's policy of honoring suicide bomber Wafa Idris on the day of her attack.
Fatah justified Idris' suicide bombing as a "response" to Israel's killing of another of Fatah's "heroes" - terrorist Raed Al-Karmi - a week earlier. Al-Karmi murdered 3 Israelis and planned the murder of 6 additional Israelis in 2001 and 2002.
Below is a list of possible punctuation marks in history. I think it becomes obvious how that changes the entire narrative.
If you only started paying attention to the story beginning in the late 1980s, when everyone really starting going on about Israeli occupation of Gaza, The West Bank, and East Jerusalem, then you believe that Middle East peace requires Israel to end an occupation. You may think that Judea and Samaria was always called The West Bank. You also think that there was once an Arab country named Palestine and an Arab people who were always called Palestinians and that they are indigenous to that country that you think once existed.
If you only started paying attention to the story, or believe it began shortly after the 6-Day War in June 1967 that saw Israel regaining control over Judea and Samaria, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, when the stage was set to invent the phrase “land for peace”, then you believe that if Israel would just relinquish land recaptured in that war, there would be peace in the Middle East. You might know there was never an Arab country called Palestine and that most Arabs would never countenance being called Palestinians before the mid-1980s. Then again, you might have known it once and since forgotten that fact.
If you think the story began in 1948, with Israel’s declaration of independence and recognition by the UN, then you believe that the UN created the State of Israel, and that Israel was created because of the Holocaust. You may believe that peace requires that the Arab world simply accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.