Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 22, 2018

02/22 Links Pt1: Podhoretz: A New Realism: America & Israel in the Trump Era; Morris: The Father of the ‘Special Relationship’; Abbas: 'We are the Canaanites'

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: A New Realism: America & Israel in the Trump Era

Of all the surprises of the Trump era, none is more notable than the pronounced shift toward Israel. Such a shift was not predictable from Donald Trump’s conduct on the campaign trail; as he sought the Republican nomination, Trump distinguished himself by his refusal to express unqualified support for Israel and his airy conviction that his business experience gave him unique insight into how to strike “a real-estate deal” to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In addition, his isolationist talk alarmed Israel’s friends in the United States and elsewhere if for no other reason than that isolationism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Semitism often go hand in hand in hand.
But shift he did. In the 14 months since his inauguration, the new president has announced that the United States accepts Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and has declared his intention to build a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, first mandated by U.S. law in 1996. He has installed one of his Orthodox Jewish lawyers as the U.S. ambassador and another as his key envoy on Israeli–Palestinian issues. America’s ambassador to the United Nations has not only spoken out on Israel’s behalf forcefully and repeatedly; Nikki Haley has also led the way in cutting the U.S. stipend to the refugee relief agency that is an effective front for the Palestinian terror state in Gaza. And, as Meir Y. Soloveichik and Michael Medved both detail elsewhere in this issue, his vice president traveled to Israel in January and delivered the most pro-Zionist speech any major American politician has ever given.

Part of this shift can also be seen in what Trump has not done. He has not signaled, in interviews or in policy formulations, that the United States views Israeli actions in and around Gaza and the West Bank as injurious to a future peace. And his administration has not complained about Israeli actions taken in self-defense in Lebanon and Syria but has, instead, supported Israel’s right to defend itself.

This marks a breathtaking contrast with the tone and spirit of the relationship between the two countries during the previous administration. The eight Obama years were characterized by what can only be called a gut hostility rooted in the president’s own ideological distaste for the Jewish state.

Benny Morris: The Father of the ‘Special Relationship’

Quite a few celebrities, such as Leonard Bernstein and Edward G. Robinson, passed through Israel/Palestine in 1948 and 1949, especially during the lengthy truces between the bouts of combat in that first Arab–Israeli war. Many of them met with James McDonald, who was President Harry Truman’s first “Special Representative” in Israel and then, from February 1949 until the end of 1950, America’s ambassador. Among the visitors was Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian-born journalist and novelist, who had already lived in and reported from Palestine in the late 1920s and again in 1945. For years, Koestler had identified with the Revisionist Movement (the progenitor of today’s Likud), before growing disillusioned (as was his wont with most things he touched). On September 20, 1948, he arrived on McDonald’s doorstep for “tea and sherry.”
In the fourth volume, just published, of his diary—Envoy to the Promised Land, the Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald 1948–1951—McDonald characterized the meeting as “delightful and civilized.”1 Koestler avowed that his “chief interest in this country is its intellectual future,” by which he meant its cultural-ideological-political evolution. “He sees three possibilities,” McDonald wrote. “A) Levantinism; b) Clericalism; c) Westernization.” McDonald explained: “By [Levantinism], he means the kind of superficial culture such as is prevalent…in the Arab states with a shallow but non-understanding knowledge of the West. Under [clericalism], he would lump the various possibilities arising from undue rabbinic influence.…[Westernization] is self-explanatory.” Koestler, he said, doubted that would happen. The sabras, native-born Palestinian Jews, had a “limited provincial outlook,” in Koestler’s view, and lacked “knowledge of the West” or “interest in Western Europe.”

In his quiet way, McDonald sprang to the defense, arguing that Israel was “a pioneer country in which it was natural for a generation or two or three [that] the emphasis would be on material development and perhaps rather crude nationalism rather than on culture.” This had been the case with “pioneer America and pioneer South Africa.” Koestler “seemed inclined to agree.” Somewhat contradictorily, McDonald then added that Israel was sui generis, and that all comparisons were unreasonable. What neither he nor Koestler could have foreseen was that Israel would develop simultaneously in all three directions, as it has done in the past seven decades.

Evelyn Gordon: Do Arabs Back Israel in a Clash with Iran?

What Al Jazeera’s informal poll shows is that this argument is simply false. It’s not just in Arab capitals that Iran is now more widely loathed and feared than Israel, but also on the Arab street, to the point that Arabs are even willing to openly back Israel in a clash with Iran. If Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians were still their top concern, they would instead be rooting for Iran against Israel–just as most of the Arab world did back in 2006 when Israel fought a month-long war with Iran’s wholly-owned Lebanese subsidiary, Hezbollah.

This sea change in Arab attitudes has serious foreign policy implications for anyone who calls himself a realist. As John Podhoretz correctly argued in COMMENTARY’s March issue, the realist view that Israel was the source of most Mideast problems could always more properly have been termed “fantasist”; most of the Arab world’s ills have nothing to do with Israel. But realists did have one unassailable fact on their side: When you stack Israel up against the Arab world, the latter has both the numbers and the oil. Consequently, it was at least tenable to argue–as long as you ignore all the other considerations Podhoretz cites–that America’s interests were better served by siding with the Arabs against Israel.

Today, the Arab world still has the numbers and the oil, but it’s siding with Israel against Iran. So for any realist who holds that America should align itself with Arab concerns because numbers and oil are crucial considerations, the top priority now shouldn’t be another fruitless Israeli-Palestinian peace process, but reining in Iran’s malignant behavior. To its credit, that is something the Trump Administration is trying to do by threatening to scrap the nuclear deal unless the four Israeli-Saudi-American concerns cited above are addressed.

As for all the self-proclaimed realists who remain fixated on Israel despite the change in Arab attitudes that has destroyed their main argument, perhaps it’s time to drop the “realist” label. The more accurate term for people who see Jews as the root of all evil under any and all circumstances is “anti-Semite.”

1. Our health care is pretty good

Israelis like to complain, it’s a kind of national sport. The truth is that our health care is pretty good.

At the same time, there is a bizarre dichotomy between cutting edge medicine and the overly complicated bureaucracy of socialized medicine. In hospitals that may have leaky ceilings and be in need of a paint job and new lightbulbs, you can find, in other wings of the hospital, laboratories in which groundbreaking experiments are taking place in partnership with the most innovative medical/biology/technology startups in the world. The things that are being worked on are nothing less than breathtaking.

There are pros and cons to everything – while everyone can get treatment, sometimes wait times are too long and not all illnesses are covered in the government mandate.

When seriously sick in Israel, it is necessary to have an advocate, a friend or a family member, who can navigate the process with or instead of the patient as dealing with the bureaucracy is sometimes enough to make a healthy person exhausted. In addition, as medical staff (particularly hospital staff) is overworked and underpaid, sometimes they need the help of an insistent relative to draw attention to what the patient needs.

There is an enormous debate about the balance between socialized medicine and private medicine in Israel. The doctors who have private practices are, more often than not, the same doctors who work in the public system so the private medicine does not provide better care, only faster treatment.

2. "Apartheid"

Health is a great equalizer. In Israeli hospitals religious Jews and religious Muslims are treated side by side. The medical staff consists of Israelis of all backgrounds: Sabra Israelis, new immigrants from Russia, America, South America and Argentina, Ethiopian Jews, Arab Muslims, Arab Christians… the entire spectrum of the Israeli population can be found in patients and caregivers.

There is no differentiation in types of treatment, quality of treatment or what is provided to the patient. The idea that there could be a differentiation is seen as abhorrent, inappropriate and simply ridiculous.

In the surgical department of one of Haifa’s hospitals the Chief Surgeon is an Arab. He is world-renowned for his skill in laparoscopic surgery. Doctors from all over the world come to Haifa to learn from him. His second in command is a Jew. Most of the surgeons on staff are Arabs. The man in charge of making sure all the equipment in the surgeries operate perfectly – including the laparoscopic equipment and the anesthetics – is an Arab.

Apartheid much?

3. We built that

As you walk down the halls of the hospital, something stands out. Plaques on the walls, dedicating rooms, areas and equipment to the memory of departed Jews.

The tiny State of Israel has minimal resources but the Nation of Israel, Am Yisrael, around the world, has enormous resources. We have much of what we have because Jews invested in Israel, in the people of Israel. They did it to honor the memory of their loved ones but at the same time they pass on the legacy of life for their people - literally.

We are one family and we need each other. It is important to remember this. Everything we have came from hard work and sacrifice. Nothing came easy. We are all part of this amazing enterprise called Israel, together we make it the wonderful place that it is. We are Israel. We built this.

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From JTA:

The baby daughter of a French rabbi was burned after being exposed to acid placed in her carriage.

The 14-month-old girl suffered burns on her back and thighs Monday in the city of Bron, near Lyon, Le Parisien daily reported Wednesday. The baby is not in danger, according to the report.

The acid had been placed inside a carriage that the baby’s grandmother had parked in a communal space inside her apartment building overnight from Sunday to Monday. The grandmother rushed the baby to the hospital after noticing a severe irritation on the baby’s skin after taking her for a walk in the stroller and then bringing her inside.

Police are looking into a possible anti-Semitic motive, perhaps by a neighbor, a police source told Le Parisien. The stroller was taken into police custody as part of the investigation, according to the newspaper.

I'm sure it is because of the "occupation."

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Will the Oxfam scandal finally let Europeans notice how their money to NGOs in Palestinian territories is being wasted?

In the wake of the Oxfam sex scandal, there are a number of articles in the European press about the dark side of NGOs: how aid workers can get addicted to the power that comes from disbursing funding, and how their aims are often more geared towards keeping themselves afloat - competing with other NGOs for funding - rather than towards helping the people they pretend to be helping.

I've mentioned how UNRWA itself violates by its very existence the fundamental guiding ethos of aid workers: "Do No Harm." But the entire NGO industry in the Palestinian territories is guilty of the same, to some extent. Their aid money distorts national priorities and the equally corrupt PA is happy to let others take care of their issues rather than take control of responsibility for its citizens. The absurd situation now in Gaza where the PA is cynically withholding funds and directly hurting its own people is partially possible because NGOs are so willing to step in and make up for the shortfall, and reporters will not criticize them.

As the Conflict Sensitivity Consortium notes, which I have quoted before:

Aid is not neutral in the midst of conflict. Aid and how it is administered can cause harm or can strengthen peace capacities in the midst of conflicted communities. All aid programmes involve the transfer of resources (food, shelter, water, health care, training, etc.) into a resource-scarce environment. Where people are in conflict, these resources represent power and wealth and they become an element of the conflict. Some people attempt to control and use aid resources to support their side of the conflict and to weaken the other side. If they are successful or if aid staff fail to recognise the impact of their programming decisions, aid can cause harm.

This is the larger context of the Oxfam scandal, but it is also the exact problem with the multiplicity of NGOs competing for funding for their Palestinian pets. And that funding very often comes from sources that would otherwise fund people who are far more in need than Palestinians are. As a result, Palestinian NGOs are encouraged to exaggerate the problems that ordinary Palestinians have far beyond reality. I recently documented how a consortium of 70 NGOs in the territories go out of their way to twist basic economic data to make it appear that the Palestinian economy is worsening under "occupation" when, by any measure, it has been improving year over year.

That is 70 well-known, respected NGOs publicly misleading their donor communities in order to get more funds. Why is no one outraged? But they have to misrepresent the facts, because otherwise they won't get any money.

Meanwhile, the corruption from both NGOs and the Palestinian leadership that takes advantage of foreign aid money keeps happening. i24News reports:

A corruption case involving senior Palestinian Authority (PA) officials who allegedly embezzled part of EU funding for personal gain was revealed by i24NEWS .

While the opaque - or "obscure" - links between the PA and foreign donations transmitted by Brussels have already been mentioned in the past, the information obtained by i24NEWS via sources in Gaza and abroad is particularly compromising, especially in regards a particular man.

It is Marwan Darzi, former director of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and head of the Palestinian coordination office in Zone C (an area under Israeli security and administrative control), whose structure receives grants from the EU through international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from Switzerland, France, Belgium and Germany.Even in 2017, Darzi would have taken advantage of his position to travel abroad to the tune of 100,000 euros. Members of his family also participated in these "business trips".

In addition, he would have bought for himself, his family and relatives for more than 60,000 euros of computer equipment through the entry of 3G in the Palestinian territories as he would have bought more than 80,000 euros of clothes and jewelry for his relatives and started repairs to his garden up to 200,000 euros.

According to i24NEWS sources , the office does not report the total amount of donations received through international organizations, even going as low as 70% of their original value.

Indeed, i24NEWS discovered that Marwan Darzi would have benefited from the links between his office and the Palestinian Investment Fund headed by Tareq Abbas, the son of the Palestinian President, accused in the past of embezzling hundreds of millions of euros via organizations and society screen.His name appeared in particular in the scandal of "Panama Papers" of the consulting firm Fonseca.

They would have also benefited from the help of Yaya Rabah, the spokesman of the PA. The latter has recently acquired a luxury jeep without paying taxes, a fraud punishable by imprisonment in the Palestinian territories.

This is the norm, not the exception, in the PA and with the aid distributed by the EU. There is no insistence on sound accounting and audit of the funds. Palestinians know that their officials are corrupt, as this political cartoon shows:

Europeans are waking up to the idea that their aid money to third world countries is going to enrich corrupt politicians and actually hurt the people meant to be helped. It won't take long before they see the exact same issue in the Palestinian arena, which gets aid that is massively disproportionate to the problems that ordinary Palestinians have.

(h/t Yoel)

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02/21 Links Pt2: Glick: Antisemitism in Poland a Symptom of a Larger European Problem; The case of Ahed Tamimi is deeply disturbing, but not for the reasons you think

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Antisemitism in Poland a Symptom of a Larger European Problem

The crisis in relations between Israel and Poland over Warsaw’s desire to ban honest discussion of Poland’s role in the Holocaust has eclipsed every other issue relevant to Israeli-European ties. No air is left in the room to consider, for instance, the physical peril in which the Jews of France now live. No one is talking about Europe’s role in protecting Iran from U.S. sanctions. All anyone can find time to talk about is Poland and its law banning discussion of the truth about the Holocaust.

Due to the extensiveness of Polish antisemitism, it would be foolhardy for Israel or Poland to aspire to a long-term resolution of the problem. But in the interest of maintaining mutually beneficial bilateral relations, both sides are going to have to make some difficult accommodations to one another.

Israel is going to have to acknowledge that living with officially supported antisemitism is the price of relations with European states, just as it is the price of doing business with Arab states. Part of this accommodation will involve backing off its efforts to change or abrogate the Polish law.

For its part, the Polish government is going to have to restrain its anti-Jewish reflexes at least publically. To this end, the Polish government should avoid additional antisemitic and fraudulent remarks about the Holocaust and about Jews more generally.

The world is often an unpleasant place. Europe in particular has never kicked its antisemitic habit. It isn’t Israel’s job to transform Europe. It is Israel’s job to secure its interests, and when necessary, to do so in cooperation with governments it doesn’t like that have values it abhors.

When Angela Merkel started to fail the Jews and Israel

With her summer 2015 announcement of the welcoming policy for refugees, German Chancellor Angela Merkel damaged Germany, her party, her image and probably her place in history.

She has also caused damage to German Jews and Israel. Until summer 2015 Merkel had a very good record on both these issues.

In November 2005, Merkel became chancellor. In January 2006, she visited Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2014 she also came to Israel. In the latter year Merkel was accompanied by 16 German ministers to discuss collaboration between the two countries. She had no problem in admitting German guilt toward the Jews. In January 2018 on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Merkel called for a new culture of remembrance in view of the shrinking number of Holocaust survivors.

Merkel’s attitude greatly differed from that of several senior leaders of the Christian Democratic Union’s junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD). Their previous leader, Sigmar Gabriel, currently German foreign minister, is a consistent anti-Israel inciter.

Recently he again accused Israel of apartheid.

Melanie Phillips - “No Liberty, No Equality, No Fraternity: Dealing with the Failure of the West”

Melanie Phillips has never shied away from the battle of ideas. As someone who has lived as both a hero and villain of the social and political Left, her career as a journalist has been marked by controversy over the expression of some relatively uncontroversial ideas. Her fierce independence, and tenacious defense of civil liberties has lead her to becoming one of Britain’s leading voices on a variety of topics like Brexit, the increased threat of radicalization, and how the mainstream media treats Israel. Don't miss it!

Squirrel Hill may not be all Jewish, and the majority of the residents of this Pittsburgh neighborhood may not be Jewish, but it’s where the Jews have, for the most part, settled in Pittsburgh, and it’s where I grew up. I’ve heard non-Jews refer to Squirrel Hill as “Kike’s Peak,” and whenever I’m asked where I’m from and I say, “Pittsburgh,” the response is, “Squirrel Hill?”

To which I always answer, “Of course!”

But on my last visit to my hometown, and even my last three visits, I witnessed a neighborhood in flux. Because Pittsburgh is also a college town, this conveniently situated neighborhood attracts many Asian exchange students. Restaurants have popped up to serve these students, replacing the kosher bakeries, butchers, and delicatessens of my youth. Synagogues are closing their doors, unable to sustain a membership substantial enough to stay afloat.

On accompanying a blind relative to Jewish Family and Community Services for an evaluation, I notice something else. The waiting room is filled with Arabs, my relative and I the only Jews in this packed space, where we wait to be seen by a social worker. From their accents and colloquialisms, I gather these immigrants are from my neck of the woods, meaning from Israel and the disputed territories. I note that the walls are decorated with posters detailing the rights of and services provided to Holocaust survivors, which gives me an eerie start, and a feeling of cognitive dissonance.

One day earlier, in fact, I’d walked to the kosher grocery store and was stopped along the way by an Arab couple with their child. They’d asked me which way they might reach the downtown area, this way or that way, which was not a question I could easily answer, since downtown was not within walking distance. Later, I realized they must have just left the nearby JFCS to which I escorted my relative the following day.

As I sat in that waiting room at JFCS, I imagined what those Arabs might be thinking: The Yahud exist only to wait on us and give us services.

They might wish to smile approvingly at the informational Holocaust survivor posters, as they waited patiently for (probably Jewish) social workers, remembering with joy the extinguishing of over 6 million Yahud.

Haj Amin el Husseini and Hitler have a friendly chat, 1941
(see: The Mufti and the Führer)

I wondered why, in this still largely Jewish neighborhood, there were mostly Arabs in the waiting room of JFCS. The history section of the JFCS website was helpful in explicating the reason. In 1998, the JFCS received a grant from the Jewish Material Claims Conference Against Germany to help it “identify and assist elderly Holocaust survivors in need.” But times change, so much so, that in 2017, JFCS changed its name from Jewish Family and Children’s Services to Jewish Family and Community Services, rebranding its "service programs to better reflect clients served and services offered."

In other words, the JFCS is no longer doing so much for the Jews. Because the Jews are leaving Squirrel Hill. So JFCS is doing stuff for the “community.”

And that means immigrants. In many cases, Muslim immigrants, who may or may not take joy in a poster that reminds them of the genocide of Eastern European Jewry, and who may or may not take it for granted that the Yahud is there to serve them. They may or may not pass the candy when Jews are brutally murdered in a far off land called Israel.

The Jews meanwhile, God bless their liberal hearts, are treating these immigrants with respect and kindness, giving them all sorts of help and support. Instead of helping their own. Oblivious to the fact that Jews in a similar situation, for instance, seeking help at a Gazan social services center (were Jews allowed to enter Gaza, which they are not), would be raped, lynched, and dismembered.

I wanted to rip that poster off the wall. I didn’t want to remind these immigrants of a “victory” against my people—didn’t want to give them joy over the vanquishing of so many Yahud. I felt shame that we offered them services, serving as stooges, subordinate to Dar el Islam.

This swirl of thoughts in my brain, stayed in my brain. To outside appearances, I sat, calm and collected, patient, awaiting my turn. No one there would have any inkling that I was braver than that. That I lived in my ancestral land of Judea with pride, though their cousins pick us off, on a regular basis, using rocks, bus bombings, hatchets, firebombs, car-rammings, and kidnappings.

One month on, I am home again. I visit a Jerusalem Terem, one of a chain of immediate care clinics founded by Dr. David Applebaum, may Hashem avenge his blood. Applebaum and his daughter Nava were murdered by terrorists. David and Nava were having a father and daughter chat over coffee at Hillel Café, in Jerusalem.

It was the night before Nava’s wedding.

I sit in the waiting room of Terem. All kinds of people are here, reflecting the tapestry of Israeli society: people of all colors and religions, women with wigs, women with hijabs. No Apartheid here, no siree bob.

Then I notice it: up high on the wall, a photo of Terem’s founder, just a hint of a smile on his face. A second framed item hung alongside the first, this one a document summarizing Applebaum’s vision for immediate care in Jerusalem, and his murder by terrorists. Dr. Applebaum’s visage looked down on all of us sitting there awaiting treatment: Jew and Arab, alike.

To the liberal heart, this fact would bring joy: in spite of Arab terror, we Jews remain democratic, offering an equal standard of care to all, regardless of religion or nationality. But I felt no joy, no pride. Instead I had an overwhelming desire to cover up Applebaum’s photo. Why should they get to murder him, then benefit from his vision? Why should they sit smug in the knowledge of taking his life, while begging to have their own lives saved?

To tell you the truth, it vexed me.

On the one hand, there is no question that David Applebaum deserves recognition and honor for his far-seeing vision and contribution. On the other hand, it’s a chutzpah to allow his memory to be exploited by those who might or might not have passed round the candy, on hearing the news of his murder (and that of his daughter). It’s awful to extend a hand to people who might not think twice about murdering Applebaum’s people, just because they are Jews—people like me—just because, to their mind, we are Jews who live on soil that became part of Dar el Islam during the Muslim Conquest.

Here is the truth: Dr. Applebaum, HY”D, saves lives from beyond the grave, even the lives of those people whose culture is a culture of death. Because Applebaum’s culture—Jewish culture—is the culture of L’chaim, of life.

And rather than fill me with pride, the inequity of this “equality” infuriates me.

As it should, you.

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Israeli Charges Discrimination After Abbas Refuses To Pay Him For Killing Jews (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Rosh HaAyin, February 21 - A crane operator whose negligence resulted in the death of an Israeli Jew filed a lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority today after discovering he was not eligible to receive a lifetime pension that the Authority pays to killers of Jews.

Poel Rashlan, 44, filed papers in Tel Aviv District Court this afternoon, naming Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and several other Palestinian officials as defendants, and accusing them of refusing to pay him thousands of shekels per month for the rest of his life simply because he is Jewish, whereas non-Jews who kill Jews receive such payments without even applying.

Rashlan was convicted of criminally negligent homicide following a 2017 incident in which, under the influence of drugs, he failed to adhere to basic safety procedures and caused the collapse of his construction crane. The falling segments of the ten-story device fell on a car, killing the driver. Rashlan expected to receive the same monthly stipends that the Palestinian Authority pays others who have killed Jews, but received nothing, his lawyer asserted.

"I am filing this lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Rashlan to call attention to the discriminatory practices of the Palestine National Authority with regard to to their pay-for-slay program," stated attorney Ron Scheister. "While non-Jewish killers of Israeli Jews, and of others, receive monthly payments, my client has received nothing. Even those whose actions fail to result in the actual death of Jews receive payments, albeit lower ones, whereas my client, whose actions led directly to the death of an Israeli Jew, remains suspiciously absent from the rolls of those whom the Palestinian Authority pays a generous lifetime pension."

Scheister noted that while both Israeli and American pending legislation might pressure the Palestinian Authority to cease such payments, his client cannot wait until the legislation goes into effect for justice. "It would be one thing if the Taylor Force Act were to go into effect tomorrow," he explained, referring to a bill under Senate review. "Then we could anticipate all such pay-for-slay payments to come to an end, and hold off on filing the suit. However, with the timetable of such legislation and its impact still undetermined, Mr. Rashlan decided to address the injustice that prevails in the interim."

Scheister also revealed that he considered making the case a class action suit on behalf of any Jew convicted of homicide since the Palestinian Authority began making payments to killers of Jews decades ago, but decided against the move for reasons of expediency. "It would take much longer for a class-action suit to proceed," he noted. "By then the Authority may bow to the financial pressure of the Taylor Force Act and other laws, rendering the lawsuit pointless. So we proceeded with just a regular lawsuit."

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02/21 Links Pt1: IDF reveals it thwarted attempted Islamic State bombing of Australian flight; Senior PA official embezzled EU aid money; The Obama Administration’s $1.7 Billion Iranian Deception

From Ian:

PMW: Fatah honors terrorist who led murder: “Martyr who sat on shoulders of Heaven and smiled”

One of the latest new Palestinian "heroes" is "Martyr" Ahmed Nasr Jarrar - the terrorist who led the terror cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six, in a drive-by shooting on Jan. 9, 2018, near Havat Gilad in the Nablus area.

Terrorist Jarrar was shot and killed during an exchange of gunfire with Israeli soldiers while resisting arrest near Jenin on Feb. 6, 2018. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that Abbas' Fatah Movement has honored him several times, and continues to do so as seen in additional Facebook posts below.

Palestinians have also named sports tournaments after the terrorist. A futsal championship was held in the Nablus area:

"The Martyr Ahmed Jarrar Futsal Championship"
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 12, 2018]

In Gaza too, terrorist Jarrar is a hero with two sports tournaments having already been named after him:

"The Martyr Ahmed Nasr Jarrar Table Tennis Cup" (to be held later this month)

"The Martyr Ahmed Jarrar Handball Cup" (date to be announced)
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 19, 2018]

The following are 10 Fatah posts on Facebook glorifying terrorist Jarrar:

IDF reveals it thwarted attempted Islamic State bombing of Australian flight

The Israeli army on Wednesday revealed that the Military Intelligence Unit 8200 foiled an Islamic State attempt to bomb a flight from Australia last August.

“The unit provided exclusive intelligence that led to the prevention of an air attack by the Islamic State in 2017 in Australia,” a senior IDF officer said.

“The foiling of the attack saved dozens of innocent lives and proved Unit 8200’s position as a major player in the intelligence fight against the Islamic State,” the officer said, on condition of anonymity.

Wednesday’s revelation was an unusual move for the Israeli army, which generally keeps mum on the operations of the secretive Unit 8200, which is similar to the American National Security Agency, collecting information from electronic communication, also referred to as signals intelligence.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Munich Security Conference that Israeli Military Intelligence “helped prevent dozens of terror attacks in dozens of countries by the Islamic State.” (h/t Yoel)

Exclusive: Senior PA official embezzled EU aid money

A top Palestinian official spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid money provided by the European Union on personal expenses like overseas travel, electronics and landscaping, according to information obtained by i24NEWS.

Sources in Gaza, Ramallah and Europe said that Marwan Durzi, the ex-head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the West Bank and the current head of the Palestinian co-ordination office for Zone C (the part of the West Bank under full Israeli military control) took advantage of his position overseeing grants provided by the EU for humanitarian purposes.

The sources said that in 2017 Durzi was found to have taken 100,000 ($123,000) euros worth of business trips, many accompanied by his family.

He also purchased 60,000 euros ($74,000) of computers, phones and tablets for himself and associates after a 3G communications network was finally established in the West Bank, more than 80,000 ($98,500) euros worth of clothes and jewelry and 200,000 ($247,000) euros on gardening.

Sources said that the office he runs do not keep accurate records of the amount of funds received by the EU, and in some cases reported them to be 70% lower than they actually were. (h/t Yenta Press)

The Fatah Facebook page proudly showed a photo of Yasir Arafat, Moammar Qaddafi and Mahmoud Abbas, laughing it up together in Libya.

In America, a politician being seen in public with Louis Farrakhan is considered dangerous to his career.

For the Palestinians, though, photos of their leader with the worst Arab despots are to be celebrated.

Think about that.

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Abbas, once again, plans to keep saying "no.".

He wants to let the international community pressure Israel to give in to his demands, while he sits back and waits and refuses to make any decisions.

In 2009, his plan was strikingly similar - just he was trusting the Obama administration to do what he now expects the UN to do. From the Washington Post, May 29, 2009:

Mahmoud Abbas says there is nothing for him to do.

True, the Palestinian president walked into his meeting with Barack Obama yesterday as the pivotal player in any Middle East peace process. If there is to be a deal, Abbas must (1) agree on all the details of a two-state settlement with the new Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu, which hasn't yet accepted Palestinian statehood, and (2) somehow overcome the huge split in Palestinian governance between his Fatah movement, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules Gaza and hasn't yet accepted Israel's right to exist.

Yet on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and publicly accept the two-state formula.

Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin negotiations.

Of course, during the Obama administration Netanyahu did agree to a two state solution and Israel did freeze settlement construction for nearly a year in order to induce Abbas to negotiate. Instead, he pocketed his gains and still refused to negotiate.

Hamas, on paper, agreed to unify with the PA, with Abbas now responsible for running the sector. Yet Abbas refuses to pay for basic services in Gaza even after the agreement.

Abbas is clearly a liar who will not follow through on his promises. (Ironically, this is exactly what Muslims accuse Jews of, since Mohammed's time.) Abbas thinks that his demands bear fruit, so why not keep adding more demands - and keep refusing to do anything on his own part?

The world is slowly waking up to his methods. The Arab world is already sick of Abbas and the entire Palestinian issue that they have spent so many years and political capital to support. The current US administration is not falling for the lies.

The only support Abbas has is from the EU and the UN. And even they are more going through the motions than really caring about the Palestinians.

The end of the Washington Post article remains as relevant as ever:

"I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."

If the people in the West Bank are living a normal life, then the world doesn't need to care much about a meaningless piece of paper that Abbas would ignore anyway. And his active persecution of Gazans, today, show that the world cares more about Palestinians than their supposed leader does.

The world is waking up to the reality of a leader who refuses to do anything except to say no.

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On Monday, Israel's Delek Drilling company announced that Egyptian private company Dolphinus is set to import gas from Israel worth $15 billion, pending regulatory approval from both countries.

As was the case with the similar deal with Jordan, this is causing some Egyptians to be upset.

From Al Ahram:

Egyptian leftist MP Abdel-Hamid Kamal, who represents the governorate of Suez, has submitted an urgent information request on Tuesday asking that Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla be summoned to parliament as soon as possible to explain to MPs reports that Israel has signed two agreements to sell gas to Egypt.

Kamal's request, submitted to parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal, said, "Importing natural gas from Israel would be in violation of Article 139 of the constitution, which states that the main job of the president of the republic is to preserve the people's interests and maintain the independence of the state and the integrity and safety of its land."

"Any gas deal with Israel goes against this article, as Israel is still an enemy of Egypt in practical and de facto terms," argued Kamal, who is affiliated with the leftist Tagammu Party.

Kamal told Ahram Online that "gas deals with Israel pose a big threat to Egypt's internal security and national economy… It gives Israel, an enemy to Egypt, a hand to manipulate Egypt's economy, as dependence on gas imports from the Jewish state for a long period of time will surely be very risky," said Kamal.

“The deal also raises questions about the private Egyptian company Dolphinus: who are [the company’s] owners? Does it have foreign partners, and how were they able to sign a 10-year deal that will do a lot of harm to the Egyptian economy and delay the liquification of Egyptian gas?”

The deal triggered wide-scale reactions in Egypt's economic and political circles yesterday, and was a hot issue on most private TV talk shows on Monday night.

In response, the Petroleum Ministry tried to downplay the news:

Egypt’s petroleum ministry responded on Monday to news of a massive gas deal between Egyptian private company Dolphinus and Israeli gas firms, saying it makes "no comment on negotiations or deals involving private sector companies over importing or selling natural gas."
In press statements on Monday evening, Egypt’s petroleum ministry spokesman Hamdy Abdel Aziz said the ministry would deal with any permit or license requests by the private sector in accordance with applicable regulations, in light of Egypt’s strategy of becoming a regional hub for energy.
He added that the government has been taking measures to liberalize the natural gas market, putting in place a regulatory framework that allows private companies to use the national gas grid to trade within approvals and requirements laid down by the Gas Market Regulatory Authority.

In an Arabic interview, the minister struck a slightly different tone:

The minister stressed that in the case of implementation of this order, Egypt has three conditions before it is accepted, the first is the approval of the government, the second to achieve value added to the Egyptian economy, and the last to find solutions to international arbitration issues outstanding with the other party.

Interestingly, Egypt has recently announced that it will start pumping a large gas field itself:

In December, petroleum minister Tarek El Molla said that Egypt will achieve self-sufficiency in natural gas before the end of 2018.
Mammoth gas gield Zohr and the North Alexandria and Nooros fields are expected to increase Egypt's natural gas output by 50 percent in 2018 and 100 percent in 2020, the Ministry of Petroleum said in October.

One must wonder why the Egyptian firm struck a ten year deal when Egypt claims it will be self-sufficient in natural gas in only two years.

Perhaps the Zohr field isn't quite as ready as they claimed.

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02/20 Links Pt2: HALEY'S FIERY UN SPEECH: 'I Will Not 'Shut Up.' Rather, I Will Speak Some Hard Truths'; When Anti-Zionism Reigned at the IRS

From Ian:

Phyllis Chesler: When Anti-Zionism Reigned at the IRS

Now we have further documentation of Obama's official anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism and its reign at the IRS between 2010 and 2017.

The mainstream or leftstream and liberal media barely covered this lawsuit. The Wall Street Journal and FOX did.

One 2010 article in Politico found the right kind of Jew, former IRS Commissioner, Sheldon Cohen who said, "he was skeptical of Z Street's motives in its high-profile lawsuit, rather than pursuing its concerns in tax court. 'They were hardly into the process when they screamed rape – nobody lifted the dress yet," he said, noting that 501(c)3 groups can't advocate for political positions.

Seven years is a long time to be unable to raise funding for educational purposes; it is also a long time in which to launch and maintain a self-defensive lawsuit, one which was immediately punished by the IRS which then froze the Z STREET application. Seven years is a long time to experience the absence of Jewish-American organizational support; the turned backs of Jewish philanthropists is another kind of sorrow and challenge.

Britain and Zionism: Did Margaret Thatcher betray Balfour?

British policy toward Zionism and Israel has been a 100-year roller-coaster, from the triumphant Balfour Declaration to the depths of the 1939 White Paper, and back again to Margaret Thatcher — the first British prime minister to visit the Jewish state, and famously pro-Israel.

Or was she?

Tel Aviv University lecturer Azriel Bermant’s new book “Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East” (Cambridge) draws on recently released British and Israeli government papers to reveal the truth about Margaret Thatcher’s Middle East policy and reassess her famous battles with the Arabists of Britain’s Foreign Office.

Author Elliot Jager’s book “The Balfour Declaration: Sixty-Seven Words – 100 Years of Conflict” (Gefen), explores the myriad of influences and personalities who came together at a pivotal point in history to issue the famous founding charter of the Jewish national home.

The two authors will reflect on the past century of Anglo-Zionist relations at a public discussion, in English, produced with the Sir Naim Dangoor Center for UK/Israel Relations at Mishkenot Sha’ananim on Tuesday, February 27. Tickets are available HERE.

Although Thatcher’s personal sympathies were pro-Israel, when it came to concrete policy “there was very little difference between the way she saw things and the way the Foreign Office saw things,” says Bermant.

Even as UK policy seemed to diverge from Israel’s – opposing Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, denouncing settlements, supporting arms and AWACs deals with Saudi Arabia, softening the UK’s rejection of the PLO – Thatcher was still lauded as a great friend.

MEMRI: Lebanese Journalist: 100 Years After Balfour Declaration, The Arabs Have Failed Where Israel Has Excelled

In a November 25, 2017 article marking the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, published in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Lebanese journalist Karam Al-Hilu compared the meager accomplishments of the Arab world in the past century with those of the rest of the countries of the world, particularly Israel. He noted that Israel's supremacy in the areas of science, economy, society, and politics is the source of its strength as well as the source of the Arabs' failure in confronting it.

The following are excerpts from his article:
"A century after the Balfour Declaration... the Arabs have not managed to build a [a single] state that possesses knowledge, justice, and the economic, social, and human capability for confronting Zionism. One hundred years have been squandered, in all aspects; during them, the Arabs have been confronting Israel while their cultural infrastructure was in crisis – in the areas of knowledge, politics, economy, society, and thought. According to the 2014 [UN] report on knowledge in the Arab world [the Arab Knowledge Report], despite the 500 Arab universities, with an enrollment of nine million students and faculties of 220,000 lecturers, higher education in the Arab world is very meager in scientific research, in its failure to adapt to digital culture, and in its incompatibility with [universal] scientific and human culture. Outlay on scientific research is extremely negligible. Even in Egypt, the Arab country where the [cultural] awakening is the most deeply rooted, [only] 0.43% of the [gross] national product [is allocated to scientific research], versus 4.04% in South Korea and 3.39% in Japan. Therefore, scientists and research output are a rarity in the Arab world, and the research that is published [there] constitutes only 0.8% of the global average. The number of patents registered to the Arabs in the past 50 years does not exceed [the number of those] registered by Malaysia alone.

"Not a single Arab university ranks among the 500 best in the world, while Israel supersedes the Arabs at an astronomical rate, in inventions and in hi-tech export. Israel has completely wiped out illiteracy [among its citizens], while among the Arabs, 23% remain illiterate.

Here's the text of Danny Danon's response to Mahmoud Abbas' speech in the UNSC today. I thought it was a strong speech and it made all the major points that get ignored in the media and by diplomats.

I expected Mr. Abbas to stay for a dialogue, but once again he has run away instead of listening to what we have to say.

Look what just happened. Mr. Abbas came here put his demands on the table.

Now he expects you to deliver.

This is not the way to achieve peace. You cannot avoid direct negotiations.

Thank you, Mr. President.

It is unfortunate that we are meeting here today;
For the past seven and a half years the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas,
has refused to meet even once with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

He has refused to negotiate peace.

Yet, during that same time, Mr. Abbas has made seven trips here to the United Nations.

Today, once again. rather than driving just twelve minutes from Ramallah to Jerusalem, he has chosen to fly twelve hours to New York to avoid the possibility for peace.

Mr. Abbas.

You have made it clear with your words and with your actions, that you are no longer part of the solution. You are the problem.

What have you done to better the life of a single person in Ramallah or Gaza?

The Palestinians need leadership that will invest in education, not glorify violence.
They need leadership that will build hospitals, not pay terrorists.
They need leadership that will negotiate with Israel and not run away from dialogue.

You just addressed the members of the Security Council and spoke of your commitments to peace. This is what you often do when speaking to international forums.

But when you address your people in Arabic, you convey a very different message.

A few weeks ago, when you spoke to the PLO Central Committee you called the national movement of the Jewish people and I quote “colonialist project that has no connection to Judaism.”

In the same shameful speech, you had the audacity to accuse Jews of supporting antisemitism in order to promote Zionism.

This was not the first time you used such hateful language.

In September 2015, as part of your attempts to delegitimize the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel you said that Jews had no rights to the Temple Mount and other holy sites. And that the Jews, and I quote…“desecrate them with their filthy feet.”

You then went on to incite your people to violence saying, and I quote, “we welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.”

Mr. Abbas,
You inspire a culture of hate within Palestinian society.
You name schools and public squares in honor of terrorists.
You encourage your children to hate by teaching them in school that Jews are descendants of apes.

Just this month, your Fatah faction praised the terrorists who killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach.

And you remained silent and refused to condemn the terrorists who killed a father of six as he was driving home to see his children.

Mr. Abbas, your incitement does not end with rhetoric. You have made it official Palestinian policy to sponsor terrorism.

In 2017, you spent $345 million dollars paying terrorists for killing innocent Israelis.

That is fifty percent of total foreign aid donated to the PA.
This is money you could have spent building forty hospitals.
This is money, you could have used to build 172 schools.
Every year.

Your travel around the world seeking international intervention is an attempt to avoid the hard choices necessary for peace.

You look to every possible forum because you don’t want to actually negotiate with Israel.

Mr. President,

It is unfortunate, but this reckless behavior by Chairman Abbas is nothing new.

It is a pattern he has continued in the spirit of over seventy years of missed opportunities by Palestinian leadership.

We recently celebrated seventy years since the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 181.

For the Jewish people, it represented international recognition of our historic rights to our homeland. We accepted the resolution immediately.

It was not perfect. It did not provide us with all that we deserved.

But it gave us hope for a better future.

Yet, this past November, as Israel celebrated this milestone the Palestinians marked this anniversary with grief and mourning just as they did seventy years ago when they chose to reject it.

Since that moment in 1947 Israelis fought valiantly in too many wars against our enemies intent to destroy our country.

Over time, brave leaders emerged in Egypt and Jordan. Leaders who were willing to negotiate, compromise, and ultimately sign peace agreements with Israel.

But the Palestinian leadership continued to choose conflict over coexistence.

At the Camp David summit, in 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak presented the Palestinians with an unprecedented offer.

What was Mahmoud Abbas’s reaction? To side with Yasser Arafat, claim it was a trap, and reject the proposal.

In 2005, Mahmoud Abbas was elected to chair the Palestinian Authority.

The world hoped he would follow in the courageous footsteps of President Sadat and King Hussein, seek peace with Israel, and forge a better future for Palestinians.

But he let his people down.

Since the day he took office, peace plan after peace plan has been accepted by Israel and rejected by Mr. Abbas.

Israeli leaders have sat with Mr. Abbas time and again. Three different Israeli prime ministers, three different American presidents. But every time there is an inch toward progress…

Mr. Abbas runs away.

In 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the most generous deal since Resolution 181. An almost complete withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and a direct link to the Gaza Strip.

The offer even included a plan to place the Old City of Jerusalem, the gateway to our holiest sites, under international control.

Mr. Abbas’s response was simple: An unequivocal no.

Two years later, Prime Minister Netanyahu did something unprecedented. In an attempt to restart negotiations, he initiated a ten -month freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria.

This was a precondition that no Israeli Prime Minister, not even Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres had ever agreed to. But soon enough, the ten months passed and Mahmoud Abbas was nowhere to be found. He never came to the table. (P)

In 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry opened another attempt at negotiations. Once again Prime Minister Netanyahu was ready to talk. Once again, he was ready to negotiate, despite the years of Palestinian rejections of peace.

Chairman Abbas responded by breaking his commitment to Secretary Kerry. He chose unilateral action joining international conventions. Then he sought peace with Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist organization, without even demanding that it renounce violence.

Today, as we speak, the current US administration is once again working hard to make progress toward peace. Mr. Abbas, however, is once again looking hard for an excuse.

This time, he claims it was the American announcement about Jerusalem that drove him to reject negotiations. By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, President Trump simply stated what should be clear to everyone.

Mr. Abbas,
Let me be clear.

For thousands of years Jerusalem has been the heart and soul of our people.

Jerusalem has been our capital since the days of King David.

And Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel forever.

We will always insist on Israeli sovereignty over a united Jerusalem. But, even fair-minded observers would agree that under any possible agreement Jerusalem will be recognized internationally as our capital.

After all these years of Abbas’s rejectionism, one thing is clear: when we extend a hand,
Abbas extends a fist.

Only when the terrorists of Hamas extend a hand, does Abbas embrace them with open arms and without preconditions.

Mr. Abbas has no even insisted on the basic human gesture of demanding the return of the Israeli civilians and the remains of IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul that Hamas is savagely holding.

Mr. President…

Israelis are an optimistic people.

We weathered four bloody wars with Egypt while waiting for a leader like Anwar Sadat to courageously visit Jerusalem.

It took decades of talks with Jordan until the time was right for King Hussein to enter into what he rightly called a “peace of the brave.”

Three times a day Jews in Israel and all over the world turn to Jerusalem, and pray for peace.

We ask the following from God:

שִׂים שָ לוֹם טוֹבָה וּבְרָכָה
חֵן וָחֶֽסֶד וְרַחֲמִים עָלֵֽינוּ וְעַל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל עַמֶּֽךָ

“Grant peace everywhere goodness and blessing, Grace, loving kindness and mercy to us and unto all Israel and all of the world.”

We have no doubt that the day will come when the Palestinian people will also be blessed with leadership that shares these noble aspirations.

This will be a leadership that condemns violence and ends the shameful practice of paying salaries to terrorists. It will be a leadership that educates its people to tolerance instead of peddling in antisemitism. It will be a leadership that recognizes that Israel is and always will be
the national homeland of the Jewish people.

Israel eagerly awaits the day, when this Palestinian leadership will emerge and will bring the hope of a better future for its people and our region.
Thank you.

And here's Nikki Haley's response:

.@USUN Ambassador Nikki Haley delivers remarks at a @UN Security Council Briefing on the Situation in the #MiddleEast. pic.twitter.com/BnMFQgYy4t
— Department of State (@StateDept) February 20, 2018

Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General, for being with us today, as well as to Mr. Mladenov for his briefing.
We are meeting today in a forum that is very familiar to all of us. This session on the Middle East has been taking place each month for many, many years. Its focus has been almost entirely on issues facing Israelis and Palestinians. And we have heard many of the same arguments and ideas over and over again. We have already heard them again this morning.
It is as if saying the same things repeatedly, without actually doing the hard work and making the necessary compromises, will achieve anything.
Beginning last year, we have tried to broaden the discussion, and we have had some success in doing so. I thank my colleagues who have participated in those broader discussions.
One reason we did that is our well-founded belief that the United Nations spends an altogether disproportionate amount of time on Israeli-Palestinian issues. It’s not that those issues are unimportant. They are certainly very important. The problem is that the UN has proven itself time and again to be a grossly biased organization when it comes to Israel.
As such, the UN’s disproportionate focus has actually made the problem more difficult to solve, by elevating the tensions and the grievances between the two parties.
Another reason we have attempted to shift the discussion is that the vast scope of the challenges facing the region dwarf the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As we meet here today, the Middle East is plagued by many truly horrendous problems.
In Yemen, there is one of the worst humanitarian disasters on earth, with millions of people facing starvation. Meanwhile, militia groups fire Iranian rockets from Yemen into neighboring countries. In Syria, the Assad regime is using chemical weapons to gas its own people. This war has taken the lives of over half a million Syrians.
Millions more have been pushed into neighboring Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon as refugees, causing major hardships in those countries.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah terrorists exert ever-more control, illegally building up a stockpile of offensive weapons, inviting a dangerous escalation that could devastate regional security.
ISIS is engaged in an inhumane level of cruelty in much of the region. They’ve been dealt severe setbacks in Iraq and Syria, but they are not completely yet destroyed, and they still pose serious threats.
Egypt faces repeated terrorist attacks.
And of course, there is the terrorist-sponsoring regime in Iran that initiates and encourages most of the troubles I just outlined.
These immense security and humanitarian challenges throughout the region should occupy more of our attention, rather than having us sit here month after month and use the most democratic country in the Middle East as a scapegoat for the region’s problems.
But here we go again.
I do not mean to suggest that there is no suffering in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both sides have suffered greatly. So many innocent Israelis have been killed or injured by suicide bombings, stabbings, and other sickening terrorist attacks. Israel has been forced to live under constant security threats like virtually no other country in the world. It should not have to live that way.
And yet, Israel has overcome those burdens. It is a thriving country, with a vibrant economy that contributes much to the world in the name of technology, science, and the arts.
It is the Palestinian people who are suffering more. The Palestinians in Gaza live under Hamas terrorist oppression. I can’t even call it a governing authority, as Hamas provides so little in the way of what one would normally think as government services.
The people of Gaza live in truly awful conditions, while their Hamas rulers put their resources into building terror tunnels and rockets. The Palestinians in the West Bank also suffer greatly. Too many have died, and too much potential has been lost in this conflict.
We are joined here today by Palestinian Authority President Abbas. I’m sorry he declined to stay in the chamber to hear the remarks of others. Even though he has left the room, I will address the balance of my remarks to him.
President Abbas, when the new American administration came into the office last January, we did so against the fresh backdrop of the passage of Security Council Resolution 2334.
In the waning days of the previous American administration, the United States made a serious error in allowing that resolution to pass. Resolution 2334 was wrong on many levels. I am not going to get into the substance now.
But beyond the substance, perhaps its biggest flaw was that it encouraged the false notion that Israel can be pushed into a deal that undermines its vital interests, damaging the prospects for peace by increasing mistrust between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
In the last year, the United States has worked to repair that damage. At the UN, I have opposed the bias against Israel, as any ally should do.
But that does not mean I or our administration is against the Palestinian people. Just the opposite is true. We recognize the suffering of the Palestinian people, as I have recognized here today.
I sit here today offering the outstretched hand of the United States to the Palestinian people in the cause of peace. We are fully prepared to look to a future of prosperity and co-existence. We welcome you as the leader of the Palestinian people here today.
But I will decline the advice I was recently given by your top negotiator, Saeb Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths.
The Palestinian leadership has a choice to make between two different paths. There is the path of absolutist demands, hateful rhetoric, and incitement to violence. That path has led, and will continue to lead, to nothing but hardship for the Palestinian people.
Or, there is the path of negotiation and compromise. History has shown that path to be successful for Egypt and Jordan, including the transfer of territory. That path remains open to the Palestinian leadership, if only it is courageous enough to take it.
The United States knows the Palestinian leadership was very unhappy with the decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem. You don’t have to like that decision. You don’t have to praise it. You don’t even have to accept it. But know this: that decision will not change.
So once again, you must choose between two paths. You can choose to denounce the United States, reject the U.S. role in peace talks, and pursue punitive measures against Israel in international forums like the UN. I assure you that path will get the Palestinian people exactly nowhere toward the achievement of their aspirations.
Or, you can choose to put aside your anger about the location of our embassy, and move forward with us toward a negotiated compromise that holds great potential for improving the lives of the Palestinian people.
Putting forward old talking points and entrenched and undeveloped concepts achieves nothing. That approach has been tried many times, and has always failed. After so many decades, we welcome new thinking.
As I mentioned in this meeting last month, the United States stands ready to work with the Palestinian leadership.
Our negotiators are sitting right behind me, ready to talk. But we will not chase after you. The choice, Mr. President, is yours.
Thank you.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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