Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 08, 2017

Planned VP visit this month will expose Abbas' true colors

Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital was a (rare) smart move by President Trump.

But the idea of sending Vice President Mike Pence to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders later this month, mentioned in his speech, is brilliant.

Vice President Pence will travel to the region in the coming days to reaffirm our commitment to work with partners throughout the Middle East to defeat radicalism that threatens the hopes and dreams of future generations.

The immediate reaction from top Palestinian officials was not so smart:

A senior Palestinian official in President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah party said on Thursday that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, due to visit the region later this month, “is unwelcome in Palestine”.
“In the name of Fatah I say that we will not welcome Trump’s deputy in the Palestinian Territories. He asked to meet (Abbas) on the 19th of this month in Bethlehem, such a meeting will not take place,” Jibril Rajoub said.

The White House response to Rajoub:

Amid indications that Abbas may withdraw from a planned meeting later this month, a White House aide said Pence “still plans to meet with Abbas as scheduled” and “believes it would be counterproductive for him to pull out of the meeting.”

Abbas will look bad no matter what happens on the 19th.

If he spurns the American vice president, he shows that he has no interest in peace, nor in a Palestinian state. It would be a slap in the face of the US, and it would piss off the most powerful man on the planet.

If he meets with him, it not only shows that Rajoub is a liar but also indicate that Abbas' own warnings ahead of the Trump declaration that the peace process would be killed is hot air. It would show that the US recognition of reality has not changed anything, despite the dire warnings of the "experts" and Arabs themselves. And it will make Abbas answer more clearly to his own people whether he wants to work for a Palestinian state or not.

For all his many faults, Trump's Middle East ideas are a welcome step towards demolishing the myths that the world has been accepting as truth for way too long. And real peace cannot be built on myths. Pence's visit will show that the myth that acknowledging the reality about Jerusalem is somehow harmful to peace is as baseless as the others.

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Safa reports that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the "military wing" of Fatah that operates mostly in Gaza but that sometimes shows up in full armed glory in the West Bank, has called on Palestinians "to engage with the Israeli occupation forces in Palestinian towns and villages in all legitimate and especially armed ways."

The press release from thr Abu Nidal Brigades makes a number of demands:

O sons of the Arab and Islamic nation:
Today we witness the summit of terrorism represented by the American Zionist administration and therefore we appeal to everyone to unite and support our resistance for the holiest holiness and the first qibla of Muslims [Jerusalem] and raise our guns as the only way to liberate our land.

Today, Satan has come out against us, thinking that he will create a new reality, erase history and distort the doctrine. A verse of the Quran will not be shaken, and will remain the kiss of all the revolutionaries.

The Al - Aqsa Martyrs ' Brigades Palestine Nidal Al Amoudi Martyrs Brigades:

We call upon the PLO and the Palestinian leadership to assume the national authority and to cancel all agreements with the occupying state

We call on the resistance factions to start the battle for the complete liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine

The Arab and Islamic nation should expel American and Israeli ambassadors who have relations with them

The Arab and Islamic nation must support the option of armed struggle to liberate all of Palestine.

To the steadfast sons of our steadfast people, we die and we live for the holiest and most holy place of the land of the first Qibla and the second Holy Haram, "Al-Quds Al-Sharif", the core of our faith and dignity.

Remember, this group is part of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah, and therefore considered by the world to be the moderate, peaceful alternative to Hamas.

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12/07 Links Pt2: BDS has failed; Six Facts The MSM Isn’t Reporting About The Jerusalem Issue; BDS: Sudden Converts to Caution

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: BDS has failed

It has become abundantly clear that the campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel is losing steam.

Radiohead, Bon Jovi, Elton John, Neil Young, Madonna and Bryan Adams either have already performed here or plan on coming. All of these artists have rejected calls by BDS lobbyists – led by Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters – to skip Israel on their tours.

When singer Nick Cave was in Israel last month, he held a press conference in part to rebut proponents of BDS. “I came to Israel for two reasons,” Cave said.

“One is because I love Israel and Israelis. Two is to take a principled stand against anyone who attempts to shut down, censor, silence or bully musicians.”

On US college campuses, while there is still a toxic atmosphere that makes many students who are openly pro-Israel feel unsafe, pro-Palestinian movements have repeatedly failed to pass resolutions that would force their universities to boycott Israel.

Just last month, the University of Maryland’s student government association rejected a resolution, brought by Students for Justice in Palestine, that accused Israel of human rights violations and that called for the university to divest from a range of American companies investing in Israel. The same dynamic has been played out on other campuses as well.

And while doomsayers have for years warned that Israel faces imminent diplomatic, military and economic isolation and censure for its policies, this has not happened. If anything, Israel has succeeded in cultivating relations with a wider range of nations, not just in Africa and South America but also in Europe. Just last month Israel hosted Blue Flag, an 11-day joint military exercise that brought together the air forces of Germany, Poland, India, France, Italy, Greece and the US. If this is isolation, what do open diplomatic relations look like?

The reason the BDS movement is failing is that it is based on lies and people are not stupid. Anyone with access to the Internet can easily uncover the many inconsistencies and internal contradictions of the BDS movement.

StandWithUs at the Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference

BDS: Sudden Converts to Caution

As I write, we do not know what might go into President Trump’s planned announcement on Jerusalem. But on at least some of our college campuses, protests are already being prepared.

At Oklahoma University, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) are set to argue that any declaration, even if it is merely an acknowledgment of Israel’s claim to West Jerusalem as its capital, “will fuel extremism, violence, and tension in Palestine and the Middle East, and the consequences will be costly for all the parties involved.” SJP of the City College of New York quoted American Muslims for Palestine to the effect that any declaration will “unleash chaos in the Arab World.”

This is pretty rich. Students for Justice in Palestine is the campus wing of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS and SJP laud figures like Ali Abunimah, a fixture on the anti-Israel campus speaking circuit, whose apologetics on behalf of Hamas are well-documented, and Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, known mainly for her work as a hijacker. Hatem Bazian, chair of the national board of American Muslims for Palestine, is most recently in the news for sharing a blatantly anti-Semitic tweet. He apologized, but he also has a track record.

Faced in 2015 with an opportunity to condemn violence against civilians during the “knife intifada,” BDS organizations instead issued statements of solidarity. “A new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of previous generations, rising up against Israel’s brutal, decades-old system of occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid.” But now, they worry about fueling extremism?

Student Activists Plan to Protest Trump’s Expected Announcement Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

Student activists around the country are planning protests of President Donald Trump's expected announcement later Wednesday recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and expressing his intention to relocate the U.S. embassy to the city.

In New York City, the Palestine Solidarity Alliance of Hunter College and Jewish Voice for Peace, a far-left organization, are cohosting a protest titled, in Arabic, "We will not abandon Jerusalem."

Hundreds have expressed interest in attending the demonstration. Students from Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and the New School have marked themselves as "going."

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Oklahoma have organized a similar protest for this afternoon.

Trump's move would be in "violation of international law," insists SJP.

The group has claimed, "The demonstration is not associated with our organization or any OU association," though the club is listed as the official hosts of the demonstration and promoted the event on their social media page.

SJP did not respond to request for comment and clarification of its role.

Some 300 people may be expected at an "emergency rally" in Boston organized by the Jewish group IfNotNow, which believes Israel is a "daily nightmare" for Palestinians.

More hate crimes in Canada against Jews than any other religious, ethnic or racial group

In 2016, there were more anti-Jewish hate crimes than even anti-Black hate crimes in Canada, which is almost certainly unprecedented.

Anti-Jewish crimes always are the most prominent compared to crimes against other religious groups (anti-Muslim crimes actually went down while anti-Jewish crimes went up.)

But to have antisemitic hate crimes outpace even racist crimes is extremey worrisome.

There are some 380,000 Jews in Canada and nearly twice that many Blacks. There are over a million Muslims, meaning that Jews are about six times as likely to be victims of hate crimes than Muslims.

Here's the full table:

	Number – 2014	Number – 2015	Number – 2016
Detailed motivation
Race/ethnicity	611	641	666
Black	238	224	214
East or Southeast Asian	52	49	61
South Asian	49	48	72
Arab or West Asian	69	92	112
Aboriginal	37	35	30
White	49	38	36
Other1	106	130	125
Race not specified	11	25	16
Religion	429	469	460
Jewish	213	178	221
Muslim	99	159	139
Catholic	35	55	27
Other2	49	41	37
Religion not specified	33	36	36
Sexual orientation	155	141	176
Other3	77	86	88
Unknown	23	25	19
Total	1,295	1,362	1,409

...

not applicable

Note(s):

Information in this table reflects data reported by police services covering 99.7% of the population of Canada. Percentages have been calculated excluding hate crimes where the motivation was unknown. Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.

Source(s):

Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Incident-based Uniform Crime Reporting Survey.

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

He did it.

In a very carefully written speech, Donald Trump announced that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel, and that he would begin the process of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The video and transcript of his speech are here.

So is this a big deal or not?

I think it is, although it will depend in part on what happens afterwards.

Do you remember when Arafat recognized the state of Israel as part of the Oslo accords? He and his successor Mahmoud Abbas made it abundantly clear that they “recognized” the state the way I would recognize an alligator lying across the sidewalk in front of me: I can’t pretend that she doesn’t exist, but I don’t believe that she has a right to be there. And I want her removed as soon as possible.

Trump made it clear that it was impossible to continue the pretense that somehow the status of Jerusalem is up in the air:

But today we finally acknowledge the obvious. That Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It’s something that has to be done.

If this were only what he said then the door is open for anyone to take the alligator interpretation. But he also said this:

Israel is a sovereign nation with the right, like every other sovereign nation, to determine its own capital. Acknowledging this is a fact is a necessary condition for achieving peace. It was 70 years ago that the United States under President Truman recognized the state of Israel.

Ever since then, Israel has made its capital in the city of Jerusalem, the capital the Jewish people established in ancient times. [my emphasis]

He didn’t have to add that last sentence. But he did, and it is the most important one in his speech. It refutes the attempts of the PA and their allies at the UN to deny the historic connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. And it supports the legal argument that the Jewish people  are indigenous to the land, and have aboriginal rights to Jerusalem (and by extension, all the land of Israel).

The US State Department has insisted that the status of Jerusalem – all of Jerusalem – must be determined by negotiations between the parties. It held that until then, the various UN resolutions that call for Jerusalem to be an internationally governed corpus separatum are theoretically operative. It has been a source of derision for years that the State Department refused to say what country Jerusalem is in. Trump has finally put an end to this silliness .

Nevertheless, Trump did not refer to a “unified” Jerusalem, and he emphasized that the boundaries of Israeli (and presumably, Palestinian) sovereignty in Jerusalem will be determined by future negotiations. For the first time, he referred to a “two-state solution,” although he added “if agreed to by both sides.” In other words, he opposes the idea of an imposed solution.

He also did not mention “pre-1967 lines,” nor did he say anything about  East or West Jerusalem.  It’s been Israel’s position – and also that of the Arab signers of the 1949 cease-fire agreement – that the armistice line (the “Green Line”) has no political significance, and is in no sense a “border.” Indeed, this is implied by UNSC resolution 242, the basis for all subsequent “peace processing,” when it calls for “secure and recognized boundaries:” the understanding is that the Green Line is neither secure nor recognized by either side.

The introduction of “pre-1967 lines” as the “basis” of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement in Barack Obama’s 2011 peace proposalwas particularly objectionable for this reason.  The concept of “land swaps,” by which the Palestinians would receive land west of the line in compensation for land in settlement blocs that would become part of Israel is also problematic, because it implies that all of the land east of the line “belongs” to the Arabs ; otherwise, why should they get something in return for it?

Trump’s announcement that he has directed the State Department to begin the process of moving the embassy is welcome, but since he has signed the waiver to give him another six months, it essentially adds nothing to the promises that he has already made. He did not mention the waiver in his speech.

Naturally, the threats from those who believe there should be no Jewish state – because that is what it means to say that Jerusalem is not part of it – are flowing in as predictably as the tide. There will be Palestinian “days of rage” which will result in disturbances and possibly terrorism here. Turkish President Erdoğan has threatened to break relations with Israel, a stupid move which will get him nothing. Arab and European leaders have also objected, claiming that it will damage the nonexistent and impossible “peace process.” However, the consensus is that Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Gulf states as well as Egypt won’t go any farther than harsh words.

The best thing that could happen would be if other nations followed the US. Agreement or at least acquiescence by Saudi Arabia or Egypt – a crack in the anti-Israel wall built by the Arabs with their famous “three no’s” issued at the Khartoum summit in 1967 – would be fabulous, but probably Israel will have to settle for something less. Jordan’s ungrateful little King Abdullah, who seems to think that Moshe Dayan’s foolish decision to leave the Jordanian waqf in control of the Temple Mount granted him sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, is expected to splutter, and this perhaps will slow the resumption of normal relations with Israel, which were disrupted by the recent incident in which an Israeli security guard killed two Jordanians after one of them tried to stab him.

Western Europe will continue in its hostility. In my opinion, attitudes there have gone beyond sympathy for the Palestinian Arabs, and they are deep into antisemitism.

The world isn’t what it was in 1990 or even 2000. The US is not the major player in the Middle East any more, and relations between the regional powers may be more important than the influence of Washington. Russia’s clout here is growing as well. Although Russia has recently expressed concern that US actions might damage relations between Israel and the Palestinians, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement in April that, while continuing to call for a Palestinian state with a capital in eastern Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s claim to its own capital in the western part of the city.

I think it’s worth emphasizing the surreal nature of this issue. Israel controls Jerusalem. As Trump noted, the President of Israel and her Prime Minister live in Jerusalem, her Knesset and cabinet meet in Jerusalem, her ministries have offices in Jerusalem. It has been thus since Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel was reestablished after thousands of years of exile. No other nation has made Jerusalem its capital city since the Jebusites lost it to King David’s army around 1000 BCE.

Israel, as in so many other areas, gets “special treatment” on this question by the international community. Every other country is permitted to designate its own capital. Despite the fact that the indigenous population was rudely displaced by the construction of a new capital city, Brasilia, in 1960, nobody has claimed that the capital of Brazil is still Rio de Janeiro or has kept their embassy there.

And yet, successive American presidents have refused to recognize the simple fact that Jerusalem is our capital. Several have promised to do so, but until Donald Trump, none has kept his promise. Yesterday, this man – who is so fiercely criticized in his own country – became a hero to millions of Israelis from almost all political factions.

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12/07 Links Pt1: Trump’s truth-telling on Jerusalem marks an all-new Middle East; 20 reasons why every foreign embassy should move to Jerusalem

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: Trump’s truth-telling on Jerusalem marks an all-new Middle East

‘This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,” President Trump said in announcing America’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Never have truer words been spoken, and they were delivered in the best speech Trump has ever given.

What Trump did was stunning. He could just have signed the waiver of the law passed in 1995 compelling the executive branch to move America’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He did it six months ago, just like his three immediate predecessors did every six months since 1996. Or he could have not signed the waiver and simply said he was going to start the process of building the new embassy.

Instead, he called the international community’s seven-decade bluff and ended a delusion about the future that has prevented Palestinians from seeing the world and their own geopolitical situation clearly. It is a bold shift.

The idea that Jerusalem is not Israel’s capital has been a global pretense for decades, including here in the United States. It’s a pretense because Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital from the moment the new country secured a future by winning a bloody war for independence waged against it by Arab nations after they rejected the UN partition of the old British mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

Under the plan, Jerusalem was to be an international city governed by the United Nations. But the Arab effort to push the Jews into the sea — an effort no other nation on earth intervened in to prevent — left a divided Jerusalem in the hands of the Jews in the West and Jordan in the East.

There would be no “international” Jerusalem because the Arabs made sure there could not be one.

Promise Keeper

Not only is President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there one of the boldest moves of his presidency. It is one of the boldest moves any U.S. president has made since the beginning of the Oslo "peace process" in 1993. That process collapsed at Camp David in 2000 when Yasir Arafat rejected President Clinton's offer of a Palestinian state. And the process has been moribund ever since, despite multiple attempts to restart it.

That is why the warnings from Trump critics that his decision may wreck the peace process ring hollow. There is no peace process to wreck. The conflict is frozen. And the largest barriers to the resumption of negotiations are found not in U.S. or Israeli policy but in Palestinian autocracy, corruption, and incitement. Have the former Obama administration officials decrying Trump's announcement read a newspaper lately? From listening to them, you'd think it would be all roses and ponies in the Middle East but for Trump. In fact, the region is engulfed in war, terrorism, poverty, and despotism; Israel faces threats in the north and south; its sworn enemy, Iran, is growing in influence and reach; and the delegitimization of the Jewish State proceeds apace in international organizations and on college campuses. I forget how the Obama administration advanced the cause of peace by pressuring Israel while rewarding the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Maybe someone will remind me.

One of the reasons the Middle East persists in its decrepit condition is that it has been, for decades, a playground of magical thinking. Whether it is believing that poverty is the cause of terrorism or that the Ayatollah Khamenei is a good-faith partner, whether it is imagining that Assad will go just because we tell him to or that ISIS is akin to a terrorist "JV team," liberal internationalists have all too eagerly accepted an alternative picture of the Middle East that is much more flattering than the actuality. A similar form of doublethink is present in our discussions over Jerusalem. Every Israeli knows Jerusalem was, is, and will remain his capital. Every recent president has agreed with him. And the U.S. consensus has been bipartisan. The last four Democratic platforms have said the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. The Senate voted 90-0 only six months ago urging the embassy be moved to the ancient city. Were we to take seriously neither these platforms nor that vote? Was it all virtue-signaling, a bunch of empty gestures in the kabuki theater of U.S. diplomacy?

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: 20 reasons why every foreign embassy should move to Jerusalem

Arab and Muslim leaders and spokespersons have been trying to frighten the entire world in order to prevent other nations from recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital – Trump's declaration notwithstanding – and from relocating their embassies to Jerusalem. It's time to tell the world what it should have realized a long time ago.

1. Jerusalem, the capital of the Jewish people's state, is one of the most ancient capitals in the world. It became the capital of Israel's monarchy during the reign of King David – that is in 1003 B.C.E., 2030 years ago, when the capitals of the countries who refuse to recognize it were still boggy swamps, leafy forests or arid deserts. The history of the oldest nations of Europe, the Greeks and the Romans, proves without a doubt that Jerusalem was already the capital of the Jewish nation in ancient times.

2. The Jews are the only indigenous people of the land of Israel and lived in Jerusalem for 1613 years before the birth of Islam, which occurred in 610 C.E. Putting it bluntly, the Jews lived in Jerusalem when Islam's forefathers were still pagan nomads in the Arabian Peninsula, so what gives the Muslims of today the right to oppose Jerusalem's being recognized as the capital of the Jewish state?

3. Can anyone imagine Muslim threats of terror attacks, demonstrations or uncontrolled rioting having enough clout to limit or direct the political decisions made by world powers?

4. Is there any other country in the world that accepts the dictates of other states regarding the location of its capital city? (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Last month, following the ISIS terrorist attack on a mosque in the Sinai, the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt was closed. This was the crossing that Hamas controlled -- until it turned control over to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority as part of the "reconciliation" between them. A PA official announced that Egypt closed the crossing because it suspected that some of the terrorists fled the Sinai and used Hamas tunnels to enter Gaza "with the knowledge of senior Hamas officials.”

Evelyn Gordon asserts that the incident and Egypt's reaction prove that Hamas is more than an anti-Israel terrorist group -- it is a Global Jihadist group:

Incidentally, this track record conclusively disproves the widespread fallacy that Hamas is primarily concerned with the Palestinian cause rather than the cause of global jihad. An organization concerned with Palestinian well-being would strive to preserve good relations with Egypt in order to ensure that Gaza’s main gateway to the outside world remained open. Only an organization that prioritized global jihad way above Palestinian wellbeing would offer extensive aid to Islamic State, even at the price of having Rafah almost permanently closed.

Hamas logo

Hamas is certainly not shy about using the word "jihad." The Hamas Covenant uses the word "jihad" 38 times.

More than that, Martin Kramer, in an article he contributed to in "Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas and the Global Jihad" notes that the covenant makes the Hamas connection to the Muslim Brotherhood very clear. According to Article 2:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times

Then in Article 7:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one link in the chain of jihad in confronting the Zionist invasion. It is connected and linked to the [courageous] uprising of the martyr 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam and his brethren the jihad fighters of the Muslim Brotherhood in the year 1936. It is further related and connected to another link, [namely] the jihad of the Palestinians, the efforts and jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1948 war, and the jihad operations of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968 and afterwards. [emphasis added]

Later, the Hamas Covenant directly addresses facilitating the contribution of Jihad fighters:

"We demand that the Arab countries around Israel open their borders to jihad fighters from among the Arab and Islamic peoples, so they may fulfill their role and join their efforts to the efforts of their brothers - the Muslim brethren in Palestine. As for the rest of the Arab and Muslim countries, we demand that they facilitate the passage of the jihad fighters into them and out of them - that is the very least [they can do].

Kramer points out that the Hamas parent organiztion, the Muslim Brotherhood, has also been the source of several key members and leading commanders of al Qaeda, such as Abdullah Azzam and Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11.

Jonathan Halevy, who also contributed an article to "Global Jihad," writes that in March 2006, Hamas Interior Minister Said Sayyam, who is responsible for the security forces, announced that he would not arrest jihadists who carry out terror attacks -- this at a time that al Qaeda was developing a presence in both the West Bank and Gaza.

Halevy writes that connections between Hamas and Al Qaeda go back to the early 1990's, when in April 1991 the Sudanese leader Hasan Turabi hosted a “Popular Arab and Islamic Conference” bringing together Islamists from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Both Hamas and Osama bin Laden attended and Hamas training camps existed alongside those of al Qaeda. bin Laden went so far as to refer to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin as one of the five ulema upon whom bin Laden based his August 1996 Declaration of Jihad Against the U.S

Osama bin Laden; credit: Hamid Mir; Source: Wikipedia

Other incidents illustrating a connection between Hamas and Al Qaeda:

In August 2000, Israel uncovered a terror network linked to al-Qaeda that was headed by Nabil Okal, a Hamas operative from Gaza who underwent military training in bin Laden camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 1997-1998.
In July 2005, al-Qaeda fired Kassam rockets from Gaza at the Israeli town of Neve Dekalim in Gush Katif, and disseminated a video documenting their activities.
October 7, 2005, the Palestinian news agency Ma’an published a declaration circulated in Khan Yunis in which al-Qaeda announced the establishment of a branch in Gaza.
On March 26, 2006, senior Hamas figure Muhammad Sayyam met in Pakistan with Sayyid Salah al-Din, leader of the Kashmiri terror orga-nization Hezb ul-Mujahidin, which functioned as an al-Qaeda affiliate

Making the connection between the 2 groups explicit, on October 22, 2003, Richard A. Clarke, the former National Counterterrorism Coordinator on the US National Security Council, said that Hamas and al-Qaeda had a common financial infrastructure: “the funding mechanisms for PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] and Hamas appear also to have been funding al-Qaeda.”

In 2004, Haaretz reported (Hamas Reveals Its Global Islamic Aspirations) that Hamas took credit for a 2003 suicide bombing at Mike's Place in Tel Aviv, where 3 people were killed and dozens were wounded. The attacks were carried out by a Pakistani-born British Muslim accompanied by another Pakistan-born Briton, from Derby. Hamas claimed:

"We have decided that the response to the crime of the assassination of Dr. Ibrahim Almakadeh should take place at the global level of the Islamic world, because of the views represented by the doctor, a supreme Islamic thinker and commander,"

There were similarities in the attack with terrorist bombings carried out by the global jihadists of Al Qaeda:

It was the first time Hamas presented one of terrorist attacks as part of a global Islamic struggle
It was also the first time Hamas had used non-Palestinian suicide bombers.
At the time of the bombing, no terrorist group took responsibility, so after the identity of the bomber and accomplice was discovered, it was originally assumed that al-Qaida was behind the bombing.

In 2011, a terrorist attack near Eilat killed eight people and wounded 30. It was carried out by 3 groups: 2 associated with Hamas and another with ties to global jihadists.

This game that Hamas has been playing, associating with global jihadist groups, is why in 2014 Egypt designated the Hamas group Izzadin Kassam to be a terrorist group -- the first time any Arab regime had ever declared a Palestinian terrorist organization to be a terrorist group.

According to Carolyn Glick, Egypt had no choice but to define the Hamas group as terrorists:

Despite its insistent protestations that the Jews are its only enemies, Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been a major player, indeed, arguably the key player in the jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula that threatens to destroy the political, economic and military viability of the Egyptian state. The declared purpose of the insurgency is to overthrow the regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and integrate Egypt into Islamic State’s “caliphate.”

Near the beginning of 2015, thirty-two people, mainly soldiers, were killed in the Sinai by a group identified as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, a jihadist group pledging its allegiance to ISIS and declaring Sinai to be a province of its “caliphate.” Glick notes that a report by Yoram Schweitzer of the Institute for National Security Studies identifies Hamas members as among the original founders of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, in cooperation with local Salafist Beduins and with al-Qaida terrorists.

According to Glick, Hamas terrorists increasingly declare their allegiance to Islamic State. For example, following the massacre of the French journalists at Charlie Hebdo in Paris, several hundred protesters in Gaza waved Islamic State flags in support of the massacre.

Glick sees Hamas not as merely a terrorist threat to Israel but as a lynchpin in the threat of global jihad. This creates the irony that while Israel allies itself with Egypt in facing this threat, the West attempts to coerce Israel into helping Hamas rebuild its infrastructure. Ideally, post-Obama there will a beginning of a realization of the Hamas connection to global jihadist threats.

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Equality Now just released a report on how the world's nations and territories treat rape under the law.

The Palestinian Authority laws are among the very worst. And their laws are truly horrific.

It is legally possible for a perpetrator of rape or sexual assault to escape punishment if he marries the victim in at least 9 (out of 82) jurisdictions. These are Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Philippines, Tajikistan and Tunisia.

A perpetrator can be exempt from punishment by reaching a “settlement”, financial or otherwise, with the victim or the victim’s family in at least 12 (out of 82) jurisdictions. These are Belgium, Croatia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Palestine, Nigeria, Romania, Russia, Singapore and Thailand.

Rape is treated as an issue of morality rather than one of violence in at least 15 (out of 82) jurisdictions. These are Afghanistan, Belgium, China, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Singapore, Taiwan and Yemen. In these jurisdictions, sexist terminology of humiliation, outrage, honour, modesty, chastity or morality is used in legal provisions on rape.

In rape cases [in Palestine] involving close relatives, if a victim is over 18 she might be charged with “criminal participation” in incest if the case of rape is not proven.

Also, under Palestinian law, if the victim is a non-virgin, the rape is not considered as heinous as when the victim is a virgin.

Astoundingly, this survey was mentioned in passing in UNRWA's Gender Bulletin - without saying a word about how the territories that UNRWA works in are the worst for women. Instead, UNRWA highlights how wonderful things are, saying things like Abbas will allow women to join security forces in Gaza.

There is literally a worldwide conspiracy to downplay Palestinian outrages because the prevailing narrative for them must be victimhood above all. The meme of Israel evil/Palestinians righteous is more important than the truth to the media, to diplomats, to "experts."

And the victims of this tunnel vision? Palestinian women, among many others.

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The hypocrisy of the Western leaders' denunciation of President Trump's recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital is naked and stunning.

French President Macron said “the commitment of France and Europe to the two-state solution, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and safe in internationally recognized borders with Jerusalem as the capital of the two states.”

British Prime Minister Theresa May said the status of Jerusalem “should ultimately be the shared capital of the Israeli and Palestinian states.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “It is only by realizing the vision of two states living side by side in peace, security and mutual recognition, with Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Palestine, and all final status issues resolved permanently through negotiations, that the legitimate aspirations of both peoples will be achieved,” Guterres said.

European Union Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini said, " The aspirations of both parties must be fulfilled and a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of both states.”

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said Jerusalem is “a final status issue and future capital for two states. ”

In the same breath as they say that recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel today is prejudging the outcome of negotiations, every one of these leaders is prejudging the outcome of negotiations - by insisting that Jerusalem will be capital of a Palestinian state! That "fact" is not even up for negotiation!

Israel exists today. Jerusalem is where its government is, today. Saying that out loud does not hurt peace. On the contrary, acknowledging the truth is the only way to bring peace. Indulging fantasies is how to avoid peace.

But this is exactly what the EU and UN leaders are doing. They "know" that any Palestinian state must have Jerusalem as its capital - even though there is no logical, historical or even security reason to insist on that.

In other words, Palestinians have veto power over declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel (because that has to be "negotiated,") but Israel has no such power over Palestinians saying that same about their future capital. The world already has given it to them.

The existing Palestinian seat of government is in Ramallah. Jerusalem is not, and never was, any Arab capital. The entire reason for that Palestinian demand for Jerusalem is to take Jerusalem away from Israel. They've said it themselves.

The insistence that Jerusalem must be the capital of a Palestinian state is the real obstacle to peace.

If the EU and UN really wanted peace, instead of kowtowing to ahistorical and ultimately impossible Palestinian demands (seriously, how can a city with two sovereigns exist without dividing it again?) they would tell the Palestinians that they have a choice: a state without Jerusalem (except in a symbolic way using a suburb of the city) or no state at all.

By telling the Palestinians that they will get their prize no matter what, the world is rewarding decades of terror and intransigence. And that does not bring peace - it guarantees more violence.

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Palestinian Authority closing schools Thursday so they can hold large anti-US rallies (plus Kotel without Dome pics)

The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education announced the closure of all schools Thursday.

It called on its staff, teachers, high school students, universities and colleges to participate in rallies scheduled Thursday at noon.

Ordinary Palestinians aren't bothered enough by the Trump announcement to "spontaneously" demonstrate. he government itself is essentially busing in students to make the rallies look much larger than they are.

Meanwhile, the lights at the Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock were turned off as part of the protest.

So I took some screenshots from various webcams to show the Kotel without the gold dome dominating it.

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Surprise! The poll that shows Americans against embassy move used biased questions

Major polls that have been quoted in the media that suggest that Americans are against the move of the US Embassy from Tel Avvi to Jerusalem are biased against the move.

The Washington Post says:

Americans are more lukewarm on the subject, including Republicans. The University of Maryland’s November 2017 Critical Issues Poll found that Americans disagreed with the idea of moving the embassy immediately by a 2-to-1 margin after being offered arguments for or against doing so. Republicans were about split on the question.

While readers of this blog might know the history of the issue, most Americans don't. So pollsters will give a brief synopsis of the issues and then ask people their opinion.

If the synopsis is wrong, the poll is invalid - because for a significant number of respondents, all they know about the issue is what the poll says!

In the case of this Critical Issues Poll, the head of the organization behind the poll is Shibley Telhami, an Arab professor born in Israel.

First he asks people which of the two sides they most closely identify with, by skewing the facts:

Q60. President Trump pledged during his 2016 presidential campaign to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel from its current location in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But, like previous presidents since Congress passed the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, he has renewed a waiver that will temporarily keep the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, based on national security interests. Now tell me the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements.

Q60a. The U.S. should not immediately move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The
international community, including the UN and European allies have not accepted
Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, which was occupied in the 1967 War. The U.S.
Government’s position has been that the ultimate status of Jerusalem has to be agreed in
negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If the U.S. were to move its
embassy to Jerusalem, it would be violating international norms, harming important
relationships worldwide, and generating anti-American sentiments among Arabs and
Muslims globally.

The poll gives 5 reasons not to move the embassy, most of which are irrelevant to moving the embassy to pre-1967 Israel or simply not true.

Q60b. The U.S. should immediately move its embassy to Jerusalem. The Embassy should
be located in Jerusalem to fulfill the president’s pledge, and there is no national security
reason to file an exception to the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act. Such an act would serve
to demonstrate the commitment of the U.S. to the State of Israel and to its control over a
unified Jerusalem as its capital.

The main reason to support it are - to show how much the US supports Israel!

No wonder the people chose not to move the embassy by a 2-1 margin.

Now, imagine if the second part was phrased this way:

Jerusalem has been the spiritual home of the Jewish people for 3000 years. Palestinians have never ruled Jerusalem, and under Arab rule access to holy places was limited. The city that was a neglected slum under Arab rule is now a beautiful city with access to all. Every country in the world is allowed to choose where its capital would be, and Israel should be no exception. It is time that the US recognizes the plain fact that Jerusalem is already Israel's capital, where its government offices and parliament are.

All facts, all accurate - and all anathema to Shelby Telhami.

A similar poll done earlier this year was even more biased:

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