Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 04, 2017

Arab nations continue to promise much, give little to Palestinians

The World Bank keeps a running total of how much the nations who pledged to give to rebuild Gaza in 2014 have actually paid.

Nearly all of the $1.5 billion of pledges (as of the end of 2016) that have never been paid comes from Arab countries.

It seems likely that those pledges will never be paid.

Arab nations keep saying they support Palestinians - but they don't follow up.

The Arabs have been at the forefront of reneging on their pledges to the Palestinians for years.

In the first decade of this century, Arab nations paid only about 40% of their pledges to the PA.

In 2010, there was a big story that the Arab League pledged a half billion dollars to "defend Jerusalem." The amount paid? Zero.

However, Arab nations consistently tell Western leaders that "Palestine" is the major issue for them. This deception ends up fooling even otherwise smart diplomats and generals who assume that when it is the top agenda item in every meeting, it must really be important to the Arabs.

As always, the importance of "honor" is not realized. The Arabs find the Palestinian situation - corrupt leaders, refusal to make peace, the bitter split between Hamas and Fatah - to be an embarrassing and shameful reflection on the Arabs as a whole. They must try to convince the West that the issue is important to them because they want to minimize the embarrassment.

Appearances is what matters in an honor/shame culture, not reality. Pledges fulfill the appearances.

It is interesting that South Africa, which is very vocal in its support for the Palestinian Arabs, pledged almost a token $1 million - and hasn't paid a dime.

Here is the list of countries who pledged to rebuild Gaza, sorted by how much they still owe (and will never pay.)

Donor	Support to Gaza	Disbursement of Support to Gaza	Disbursement ratio of Support to Gaza	Shortfall
Qatar*	1000	216.06	22%	783.94
Saudi Arabia*	500	90.41	18%	409.59
Kuwait*	200	48.93	24%	151.07
UAE	200	59.08	30%	140.92
Turkey	200	139.48	70%	60.52
European Union1	348.28	296.73	85%	51.55
Italy5	23.68	4.69	20%	18.99
Spain	22.8	14.6	64%	8.2
Germany	63.32	60.67	96%	2.65
Bahrain*	6.5	5.15	79%	1.35
South Africa	1	0	0%	1
Estonia	1.27	0.63	50%	0.64
Greece	1.27	0.63	50%	0.64
Slovenia	0.19	0.127	67%	0.063
Croatia	0.4	0.35	88%	0.05
Serbia	0.05	0	0%	0.05
USA	277	277	100%	0
World Bank	62	62	100%	0
Algeria*	61.4	61.4	100%	0
Japan4	61	61	100%	0
UK	32.16	32.16	100%	0
The Netherlands	15.31	15.31	100%	0
Canada	14.66	14.66	100%	0
Denmark	14.46	14.46	100%	0
Australia	13.18	13.18	100%	0
France7	10.13	10.13	100%	0
Finland	9.31	9.31	100%	0
Russia	8.74	8.74	100%	0
Belgium8	7.92	7.92	100%	0
Austria9	5.22	5.22	100%	0
India	4	4	100%	0
Ireland	3.17	3.17	100%	0
Brazil10	2.46	2.46	100%	0
South Korea	2	2	100%	0
Mexico	1.1	1.1	100%	0
Chile	0.25	0.25	100%	0
Hungary	0.16	0.16	100%	0
Poland	0.1	0.1	100%	0
Malaysia	0.1	0.1	100%	0
Singapore	0.1	0.1	100%	0
Bulgaria	0.06	0.06	100%	0
Slovakia	0.05	0.05	100%	0
Romania	0.05	0.05	100%	0
Portugal	0.03	0.03	100%	0
Sweden	10	11.37	114%	-1.37
Switzerland	65.28	66.96	103%	-1.68
Norway2	144.98	173.91	120%	-28.93
	3,395	1,796		1599.243

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With the PLO flag at the White House, Trump hands Palestinians a YUUUUGE symbolic victory

January 2011 was the first time the US allowed the Palestinian flag to officially fly in Washington, DC:

The Palestinian flag was flown for the first time outside PLO diplomatic offices in Washington today, in a symbolic step that officials said shows momentum towards creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Ambassador Maen Areikat unfurled the red, green, white and black banner from a balcony above the office entrance to a round of applause from supporters. He hailed the moment as historic.

Areikat praised the Obama administration for a small, if symbolic, gesture that reflects improved diplomatic relations and a U.S. commitment to help promote the goal of a Palestinian state.

"It means the administration is serious," he said of the U.S. permission to fly the flag. "What we are urging them now is to translate their support for a Palestinian state into concrete action."

In September 2015 the US opposed raising the Palestinian flag outside the UN:

After Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas ramped up rhetoric toward Israel Wednesday, the United Nations raised the Palestinian flag above its headquarters in New York as part of a ceremony that the world body’s leader said represented a “day of hope.”
The United States opposed the move, asserting that Palestinian statehood must be reached through a negotiated peace with Israel.

Wednesday, the Palestinian flag flew at the White House itself.

Inexplicably, President Trump was positioned in front of the Palestinian flag and Abbas in front of the American flag:

And Fatah supporters celebrated photos like this, claiming that it was an implicit recognition of the "State of Palestine" by the US:

It seems unlikely that the White House intended to give such a gigantic symbolic victory to the Palestinians to get nothing in return.

To Western eyes, symbolism may not be meaningless but it is not of overarching importance. But to Palestinians, it is everything. The honor/shame system ensures that appearances are more important than reality. A smart US policy would use this divergence between the shame culture of the Arabs and the guilt culture of the West and trade symbols from the US in exchange for tangible concessions from the Palestinians.

A good dealmaker wouldn't just give away what is the most valuable to one side without ensuring something significant for the other. As of this writing, we are not aware of any such deal. The likelihood is that this was cluelessness, not cleverness.

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Video: Gazans burn, hang, and beat Abbas in effigy

Unity is just around the corner.

(h/t Yoel)

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05/03 Links Pt2: Abbas To Trump: 'Palestinian' Children Raised In 'Culture Of Peace'; Media Goes Kumbaya For Hamas

From Ian:

Abbas To Trump: 'Palestinian' Children Raised In 'Culture Of Peace' (not satire)

“We are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace,” said Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, during a joint presentation alongside President Donald Trump.
Watch the segment below, or watch the entire event here.
Speaking Arabic due to insufficient fluency in English, Abbas described the “Palestinian people” as something other than regional Levantine Arabs. “Palestinians,” he continued, constitute a distinct nation entitled to self-determination and independence via statehood on Israeli and disputed territories.
Abbas spoke of “occupation” while describing “Palestinians” as a people:
“Mr. President, it’s about time for Israel to end its occupation of our people and of our land. After fifty years, we are the only remaining people in the world that still live under occupation. We are aspiring and want to achieve our freedom, our dignity, and our right to self-determination and we also want for Israel to recognize the Palestinian state just as the Palestinian people recognize the state of Israel.”
A future “Palestinian” state, said Abbas, must be built upon disputed territories east of the 1949 Armistice Lines, which he referred to as “the border of 1967.” Its future capital city, he added, must be “East Jerusalem” in accordance with the “two-state solution.”
Abbas described “Palestinians” as “suffering,” later attempting to link Islam with Judaism and Christianity via grouping of “the three great monotheistic religions.”
Islamic terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS), said Abbas, have nothing to do with “noble religion” of Islam.

10 Things You Need To Know About Mahmoud Abbas

Donald Trump is hosting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas today, in the Palestinian leader’s first official visit to the White House under the new administration. In honor of the meeting, we collected a number of important facts on the work of the PA Chairman in the past and present. The following facts, should they arise during the meeting, will likely cause a great deal of discomfort on the Palestinian side.
1. Mahmoud Abbas was an active terrorist.
Abbas was one of the planners and primary funders of the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich 1972. One of the planners of the horrific slaughter, Abu Daoud, testified that Abbas was responsible for funding the massacre. Not only does the Palestinian leader not regret his role in the murder of the Israeli athletes — he brags about it. Last September, the official Facebook page of the Fatah movement, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, described the murderous attack as an “heroic operation”, and described it as a demonstration of “the meaning of the courage and power of the Palestinian resistance fighter and his self-sacrifice for the homeland and for the cause.”
3. Abbas is a Holocaust denier.
In his doctorate, called The Other Side: The Secret Ties Between the Nazis and Zionism (Arabic), Abbas questions the historical truth of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. He noted in his thesis that “there are rumors” that the number of victims reached six million. However, Abbas claims, no-one can confirm this number: “The number of Jewish victims might be six million, and it might be much smaller, perhaps even less than a million.”
Furthermore, Abbas is deeply invested in conspiracy theories about an alleged Zionist-Nazi collaboration, and writes that the heads of the Zionist movement “granted legitimacy to every racist in the world, and especially Hitler, to do as they wish with the Jews in their power with the long-term aim of those Jews immigrating to Palestine.”
It should be noted that it was Haj Amin al-Husseini, considered the leader of the Arabs of the Land of Israel in WWII, who closely collaborated with Hitler — with the aim of exterminating the Jewish population in the Land of Israel and throughout the Middle East. These solid facts do not of course appear in Abbas’s false doctorate.

There’s a reason UNESCO just disavowed Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem and it’s not what you think it is.

It has nothing to do with antisemitism. Nope. Not a thing.

It does, however, have everything to do with FEAR.

That would be the fear of Israeli leaders.

Israeli leaders, you see, are afraid to speak the truth. They may see things with complete clarity, but when they go to act on that truth, they let their fear do them in.

If it’s a statement they need to make, for instance, they end up couching their words in some sort of nebulous PC fog. If it’s a court ruling, they’ll rule righteously then reverse the ruling. If it’s a law that needs creating, they create the law and then fail to apply it 100% of the time.

And the thing is, if you let the enemy see your fear, you’ve lost. Plain and simple.

Look what happened with this UNESCO resolution. We knew it was coming down the pike. It was going to happen on Israeli Independence Day (and did). Therefore, it was incumbent on the Israeli prime minister to issue a statement on the subject. And what better place could a prime minister smack UNESCO’s hand for its planned disavowal of Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem than in Jerusalem? At the yearly bible quiz, no less.

Here is how the Jerusalem Post paraphrased Bibi’s remarks: “Netanyahu said there was no nation in the world to whom Jerusalem was more holy than to the Jewish people.”

No, Bibi. Wrong. You let your fear do you in; do us in.

Jerusalem is not MORE holy to the Jews. It is ONLY holy to the Jews and you needed to say that.

Jerusalem was holy to the Jews before Jesus was born.

Jerusalem was holy to the Jews before Mohammed was born.

When Christians and Muslims say or even believe Jerusalem is holy to them, it’s only because it is holy to the Jews and their religions are replacement religions: designed to make Judaism obsolete.

This is the truth and EVERYONE knows it. UNESCO passes these resolutions to rewrite the truth. UNESCO DOESN’T NEED YOUR HELP to do so.

UNESCO knows as well as we do that Jerusalem is not mentioned even once in the Quran. UNESCO knows as well as we do that Jerusalem has always been in Jewish thoughts and prayers. This body knows we’re the indigenous people of this territory. It knows we fought a defensive war and have full rights to the city both according to birthright AND international law.

But UNESCO also knows that Bibi is going to give lip service to the idea that Jerusalem is holy to three peoples, therefore meeting its sneaky intentions halfway. And once Bibi does that, the entire tower of logic begins to disintegrate. People see or hear Bibi’s remarks and they say, “Even HE admits Jerusalem is not the sole province of the Jewish people!” and so the cookie crumbles.

And UNESCO’s resolution gains strength and momentum.

Embed from Getty Images

Look what happened earlier in the week regarding the UN compound in the Armon HaNetziv neighborhood of Jerusalem. There’s all kinds of illegal construction going on there. Regavim demanded that Israel force the UN to return the property to the state. So what did the State of Israel do?

It asked Regavim to hold off on demanding a response until such time as the Foreign Ministry could be in touch with UN officials and officially request a tour of the compound.

Which screws up the whole point of what Regavim was righteously trying to do, namely to show the UN that Israel is sovereign and if the UN will not obey Israeli law, they will have to turn the property over to its rightful, lawful owner, the State of Israel.

Instead, Israel sniveled and made itself little, came CRAWLING, “Oh, please Mr. Powerful UN, will you let us tour our own property (in which we so kindly HOST you and in which you have egregiously ABUSED our hospitality???)?”

UNTSO Headquarters, South View, 1986

Now one Israeli government official did stand up and show her mettle. That would be Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev (you go, Girl!). "Fifty years to our sovereignty in the city, there is no need for the presence of UN observers. They were given the opportunity to use the compound to supervise the ceasefire agreements of the Six Day War—agreements that are no longer relevant. This saga must end,” said Regev to Channel 2 News, Tuesday evening.

“I intend to approach the Foreign Ministry and other relevant parties in order to return the compound, in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in the heart of Jerusalem, to the State of Israel,” she said.

Unfortunately, this is a little like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. Plus, Regev isn’t terribly powerful in the hierarchy of the Israeli government and though the words are great, they’re just words.

This should have been taken care of before the UNESCO vote. And without big brave empty words. Either it’s our property or it’s not. And it won’t be if we don’t have the gumption to claim it for ourselves.

Another recent example of how our leaders let fear hamper them and suck our power away was the mishandling of the visa for Human Rights Watch staffer Omar Shakir. Israel turned down his request for a work visa because Human Rights Watch isn’t a real human rights organization. It’s an organization dedicated to bringing down the State of Israel.

NGO Monitor summarizes things nicely for us (please do visit the website for further details): “Human Rights Watch is a powerful NGO, with a massive budget, close links to Western governments, and significant influence in international institutions. Its publications reflect the absence of professional standards, research methodologies, and military and legal expertise, as well as a deep-seated ideological bias against Israel.”

At any rate, Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote a letter explaining the denial of Shakir’s work visa:

“For some time now, this organization’s public actions and reports have focused on politics in service of Palestinian propaganda while falsely raising the banner of ‘human rights.’”

So what did Shakir do then? He applied for a TOURIST visa.

This too, was (correctly!) denied.

But you know what happened next, don’t you? I know. You’re cringing. And you’re right: a hue and cry was raised on SOCIAL MEDIA and so Israel caved. Completely.

They gave Shakir a WORK visa (and not a tourist visa).

We’d all been cheering the Foreign Ministry for turning the guy away. And then it caves!

It’s an awful feeling to watch your representatives cave on the most important issues—on the issues that really matter.

They let in this potential terrorist to craft all sorts of plans to hurt Israel from within. All funded, of course, by Germany and other Western Jew-haters.

It’s unbearable.

What’s the solution? People say, “Don’t vote Likud.”

But no one else, at this point in time, has the qualities of leadership that Bibi has. He’s what we’ve got. He’s all we’ve got. And he’s no good at speaking the truth.

He stood up to Sigmar Gabriel—told him if he meets with Breaking the Silence and B’tselem, he wouldn’t meet with him. But then he called him to iron things out after the fact, giving Gabriel a SECOND chance to snub him: Gabriel refused to speak to Bibi.

And now Bibi has caved on the UNESCO thing with his politically correct statements.

It’s sickening. It could make a person lose hope.

Unfortunately, there may not be more to do than outline the problem whenever it happens, to underscore the PC caving, the weakened statements and actions. We can speak of these things until our leaders get the point. This is something we all can do. If so, if this is ALL we can do for now, please consider this blog post as my opening salvo.

You can trust there will be more to come.

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J-Street Staffer Unsure Whether To Wish Coworkers Happy Nakba Day (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Washington, May 3 - An aide to a senior executive at an organization that bills itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace expressed relief today that Israel Independence Day was over, as he could not handle the awkwardness in not knowing whether to greet his colleagues yesterday with a "Happy Nakba Day" wish, or what.

Nye Eave, 22, encountered numerous mentions of something called the Nakba yesterday as Israel marked its sixty-ninth Independence Day, and assumed the term referred to some positive event, given the nature of Independence Days to highlight the successes and milestones the country has attained since achieving sovereignty. Since J-Street is pro-Israel, he reasoned, the organization must take a positive attitude toward the Jewish State on the anniversary of the state's founding. However, he recalled, none of the people employing the term Nakba conveyed any sense of satisfaction or pride, causing Eave to wonder what he was missing. Ultimately, he related, he did not utter any such greeting.

"It left me with a feeling of unease, I guess is what you'd call it," explained the recent Georgetown University graduate. "We at J-Street love Israel. We never tire of saying that. It drives everything we do, right? So Israel's Independence Day must be a big deal for such a pro-Israel organization. People kept mentioning this Nakba thing in such solemn terms, I thought they were just still in the whole Memorial Day for fallen soldiers from the day before. But it was everyone, everywhere. It confused me, I admit."

Eave waited yesterday for a statement by the organizational leadership consistent with what one might expect from a pro-Israel group, namely expressions of support for the people of Israel, and appreciation of the achievements Israel as a society has made in sixty-nine years in culture, the sciences, education, and industry, not to mention thriving economically despite the continual need to fight off existential foes. "I must have missed the e-mail that went around," he surmised. "Maybe it's because I'm just an intern and I'm not on all the distribution lists, I guess, even though I get all the other ones. Maybe it was the one we all got from Mr. Ben-Ami about remembering the Nakba? I don't know. It had totally the wrong tone about it for a celebratory message."

Eave hopes to forge strong professional ties during his internship, and to establish a reputation as a person dedicated to the organization's mission. "My calendar says Jerusalem Reunification Day is coming up in a few weeks, so I'll bet they've got something appropriate planned to celebrate fifty years of the Jewish capital returning to Jewish sovereignty for the first time in almost two thousand years," he gushed. "Should I bring in a poster of that iconic photo with the three paratroopers looking at the just-liberated Western Wall, or is that overkill?"

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05/03 Links Pt1: Time to Declare Independence From the UN; Fatah: Paying terrorists promotes peace

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: UNESCO’s Latest Resolution on Jerusalem: Much of the Same

A Non-Binding Resolution with No Legal Status
Nobody should take this resolution seriously. It is nothing more than a non-binding, politicized expression of the political opinion of the extremist, anti-Israel states voting for it. It has no legal status whatsoever.
In a highly transparent and obvious attempt by the Palestinian Authority to “camouflage” in UNESCO language, the motion is nothing other than one more blatantly hostile, Israel-bashing resolution. The Palestinian leadership has, once again, devoted its international efforts at abusing an international organization in order to delegitimize Israel, rather than to instill mutual good faith and seek peace.
Such hysteria and concentrated activity by the Palestinian leadership aimed at delegitimizing Israel, on the eve of the projected visit meeting by Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, with U.S. President Donald Trump, represents a distinct “poke in the eye” of the new U.S. administration. It is a telling sign of the disdain by the Palestinian leadership for any serious attempt to restore a peace-negotiation process.
Hiding behind accepted UN and UNESCO terminology of “safeguarding the cultural heritage of Palestine and the distinctive character of East Jerusalem,” the Palestinian leadership is once again dragging UNESCO – once a credible and reputable professional organization – into the pit of politicization.
Ostensibly, in order to deceive and to recruit the support of the European countries and others for what they claim is a “watered down” text, the Palestinians and their Arab colleagues have devised curious terminology that is tantamount to political and legal acrobatics.

PMW: Fatah: Paying terrorists promotes peace

Fatah: "If we do not do this [pay salaries to prisoners], what will be their fate? They are liable to turn to ISIS... [We] say to the donor states [whose money goes to terrorists] that your donations help the PA bring peace to the Middle East."
"There is a drop in support and funding [of 70%] from all [countries]... [Donor countries are told]: Why are you providing aid to those [the PA] who are paying the prisoners and the Martyrs' (Shahids') families?"
As PA leader Mahmoud Abbas prepares to meet US President Trump today, many are hoping that Trump will condition US aid to the Palestinian Authority on the cessation of the PA payments to terrorists and their families.
Clearly concerned about this, PA leaders have published many statements this month defending their practice of financially rewarding terror. In a strange twist of logic, Fatah is now arguing that donor countries should welcome the PA's paying salaries to terrorists with their money, since this practice promotes peace by keeping the Palestinian terrorists from joining "ISIS or any other extremist party... [We] say to the donor states [whose money goes to terrorists] that your donations help the PA bring peace to the Middle East."

Convergence of US-Israel National Security Interests

In 2017, the national security interests of the US and Israel have converged in an unprecedented manner, in response to the anti-US Arab Tsunami; anti-US Islamic terrorism; the declining European posture of deterrence; drastic cuts in the US defense budget; an increasingly unpredictable, dangerous global situation; Israel’s surge of military and commercial capabilities; and US-Israel shared values.
Contrary to conventional wisdom — and traditional State Department policy — US-Israel and US-Arab relations are not a case of zero-sum-game. This is currently demonstrated by enhanced US-Israel strategic cooperation, concurrently with expanded security cooperation between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other pro-US Arab countries, as well as stronger cooperation between the US and those same Arab countries. Unlike the simplistic view of the Middle East, Arab policy-makers are well aware of their priorities, especially when the radical Islamic machete is at their throats. They are consumed by internal and external intra-Muslim, intra-Arab violence, which have bled and dominated the Arab agenda, prior to and irrespective of the Palestinian issue, which has never been a core cause of regional turbulence, a crown-jewel of Arab policy-making, nor the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel’s posture as a unique ally of the US — in the Middle East and beyond — has surged since the 1991 demise of the USSR, which transformed the bi-polar globe, into a multi-polar arena of conflicts, replete with highly unpredictable, less controllable and more dangerous tactical threats. Israel possesses proven tactical capabilities in face of such threats.
Thus, Israel provides tailwind to the US in the pursuit of three critical challenges, which impact the national and homeland security of the US, significantly transcending the scope of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue: