The Trump-Loving Israeli Doctor Offering Aid to Palestinians
Glick puts high hopes in Trump’s ability to reduce the area’s tensions. A peace plan drafted by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was due out this month — until Israel’s politics were scrambled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inability to form a government, requiring a new election. Even though details of the U.S. plan are yet to be released, Glick praises Trump for offering “another model” that provides financial incentives as well as “human rights, human dignity and civil rights” for Palestinians. Glick personally suggests something along the lines of a confederacy or a demilitarized Palestinian state one day — once Palestinian terrorism is reined in.Shmuley Boteach: Rashida Tlaib’s ‘calming feeling’ about the Holocaust
Palestinians, however, have largely rebuffed Trump’s plan as little more than a bribe. “You are literally asking a nation to forget about their right to be a nation,” says A’wad, who believes “building trust and understanding” must come first.
In the micro sense, Glick does that every day he goes on his village visits. But thinking bigger, Glick champions more “integration” in Judea and Samaria as the way to peace. “I honestly believe if there were 100,000 more Jews in Hebron, they would get along with the Palestinians, just as they get along in Tel Aviv and Haifa right now,” he says.
In the Old City of Hebron, some 800 ideologically driven Jewish settlers live within the Palestinian city of 100,000 under heavy — and, according to Palestinian locals, brutal — military protection. “It can be hard to convince other Palestinians not to commit violence because the settler project is based on violence. The occupation is a form of violence,” says A’wad, who advocates for nonviolence.
Talks of “integration” by Glick will continue to face criticism from activist Palestinians and the international left, not to mention the Israeli far-right, some of whom want to simply expel the Arab population. But in Glick’s daily interactions with Palestinian patients and friends, there is a shared feeling about the basic nature of his actions — good. During those heartwarming moments with patients, the prospect of Israelis and Palestinians living together doesn’t seem simply possible to Glick. It’s already reality.
As Glick leaves her home, the Palestinian grandmother with diabetes showers him with praise. “Bless you, Doctor!” she exclaims. “You are a good man. Please come back with your wife for tea sometime!” (h/t Zvi)
TO SAY that “there’s a kind of calming feeling” you get when you “think of the Holocaust” is worse than antisemitic; it’s positively sick. Just imagine if someone had said the same of slavery. The offensiveness of these words should be clear to anyone, certainly someone who has been accused by Jews of bigotry. It should be yet more apparent to someone, like Tlaib, who decries that assessment as wrong.PM rebukes Omar, Tlaib after they request help for BDS activist
Generally, I wouldn’t have made a fuss over her near miss on saying that Americans “celebrated” the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah. In light of her other verbal “slip” – her “calming feelings” on the Holocaust – I’m inclined to believe that there’s meaning in both. Accidental indecency doesn’t strike the same sentence twice.
Worse than her sick choice of words were her historical distortions. Tlaib claimed that her ancestors provided Jews with a “safe haven” around the time of the Holocaust. The truth is that both before, during and after the Holocaust, many Palestinian Arabs worked to make the land of Israel into a death trap.
Before the Holocaust, as tens of thousands of Jews sought refuge in Israel from the persecutions and pogroms of Eastern Europe, Palestinian Arabs didn’t provide much in the way of safety. Many, on the contrary, made a habit of massacring their Jewish neighbors. In April 1920, five innocent Jews were murdered by rioting Arabs in Jerusalem. Eleven months later, 47 more innocent Jews would be slaughtered by rioting Arabs, this time in Jaffa. Worst of all was the pogrom of August 1929, wherein an astounding 133 innocent Jews would be killed by Arab rioters in Safed, Jaffa and most famously, Hebron.
In a letter sent to U.S. lawmakers on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a strong rebuke of Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan), saying the two were “the antithesis to the strong support for Israel” on Capitol Hill.
The letter was in response to a letter signed by a group of U.S. Congress members who had asked him to intervene in the case of Omar Shakir, the regional director of Human Rights Watch and an activist in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Shakir was denied an extension of his visa because he was actively engaged in anti-Israel propaganda during his stay in Israel. The Supreme Court recently issued a temporary injunction to prevent Shakir’s deportation and will make a final ruling in the coming days.
Netanyahu said that he was not going to heed the lawmakers’ request because Shakir had shown “active support for anti-Israel boycotts.”
Netanyahu further stressed that Shakir had failed to demonstrate that he was not using his stay in Israel for propaganda purposes as part of the BDS movement against Israel.
He added that he was “surprised” that two of the lawmakers who joined the request, referring to Tlaib and Omar, were “two BDS supporters.” Omar and Tlaib have come under fire in recent months after making controversial remarks against Israel’s actions and even calling for punishing the Jewish state. Omar has recently become embroiled in controversy after some of her tweets were deemed anti-Semitic.
Netanyahu did not mention the two by name but made it obvious that he was referring to them.