Recent developments in getting Jordan to extradite a child killer to the US (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

It has been an uphill battle to bring Ahlam Tamimi to justice. Tamimi masterminded the terrorist attack that killed 15 people, including 8 children. Among the dead were 2 American citizens -- 15-year-old Malki Roth and 31-year-old Judith Greenbaum, who was pregnant. Another American, Chana Nachenberg, has been in a permanent vegetative state ever since. There were 121 people wounded. After Israel submitted to the Hamas hostage demands in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, Tamimi was one of  1,027 terrorists that were prematurely freed in October 2011. She had been sentenced to 16 life terms and should have spent the rest of her life in prison. Yet now she lives in Jordan as a celebrity, popular among Jordanians. Tamimi was born there and most of her family is now, and was then, based there. The US has pressed the Jordan to hand Tamimi over to face trial for the Americans she murdered in the Sbarro massacre. The outrage over the injustice did not immediately produce results. Neither the media nor government officials were responsive at first. But over the past few years, some in the media and government who have given exposure to the celebrity status the Hamas terrorist enjoys in Jordan and are looking for ways to get Jordan to send Tamimi to the US to stand trial. The foundation for the efforts to bring Tamimi to justice is the extradition treaty between the US and Jordan that in 1995 led to Jordan extraditing Jordanian national Eyad Ismoil to the US for his part in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

2017

Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant For Ahlam Tamimi

But it was not until 2017, that there were indications the US government was beginning to consider taking action. That is when the criminal complaint against Tamimi, first issued by a Federal judge in 2013, and for political reasons kept secret, was unsealed:

Read the whole thing.

The US Department of Justice

The US Department of Justice issued a press release, announcing that Ahlam Tamimi was being charged with "conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against US nationals outside the US, resulting in death."

Ahlam Tamimi Makes The FBI Most Wanted List

The FBI put Tamimi on its "Most Wanted" list that same day. A $5 million reward was added by the relevant agency -- a unit of the US State Department, 9 months later.

Tamimi and the legal issue of extradition began to draw attention, as Jordan's highest court -- just days after the unsealing of the charges -- declared the extradition of the murderer to be unconstitutional under Jordanian law, and therefore prohibited. There was no official response from the United States for the next two and a half years.

The Legal Angle

In October 2017, the National Security Law Brief -- a publication of the Washington, DC-based American University, published a paper by Michelle Munneke entitled, Pressure on Jordan: Refusal to extradite mastermind of deadly 2001 Sbarro suicide bombing in Jerusalem contravenes international law and agreements Munneke notes a second treaty between the US and Jordan that establishes mutual assistance in matters of law enforcement.

The article points out and rebuts the claim, made by advocates for Tamimi (but not the Jordanian judges) of double jeopardy. It also addresses the issue of international comity, according to which "the law governing some cases should be that law of which country has a higher interest in the outcome of that case." Munneke also notes the precedent Jordan itself established in 1995 when it extradited Jordanian national Eyad Ismoil.

2018

The State Department Issues A Reward

In January, the Rewards for Justice Program, which is the U.S. Department of State’s Counter-Terrorism Rewards Program, offered a $5 million reward:

Jordan Reacts

At this point, 2 months later, there was a response from Jordan in the form of an article in Al Ghad, which according to Wikipedia is "the first independent Arabic daily national newspaper published in Jordan." Translated by Google Translate as Jurists comment on Tamimi's extradition request: There is no trial for a person who did twice, the article quotes 3 Jordanian lawyers who defend why Jordan has refused to honor its extradition treaty with the US. The article summarizes the arguments in the first paragraph:

Lawyers considered that extraditing the freed prisoner Ahlam Al-Tamimi to America is “not permissible”, citing that “the laws of the world do not allow anyone to be tried twice, and they are also in Jordan,” in addition to the absence of an agreement to exchange criminals between the two countries.

The Munneke article above deals with the Double Jeopardy issue, rebutted in a previous post here. Similarly, that article deals with the claim that there is no treaty.

2019

Congressional Letter To Secretary of State Pompeo

In March 2019, the first of 3 letters from Congressmen appeared. In a bipartisan effort, 20 Congressmen sent a letter to Secretary of State Pompeo, urging him to extradite Tamimi to the US:

Read the whole thing.

State Department: The Extradition Treaty Is Valid

Later in the year, when the State Department delivered its annual "Country Report on Terrorism" to Congress, there was a change in the section on Jordan from previous years. In the 2017 report, the report merely mentioned in passing that Jordan claimed their constitution does not allow for the extradition of Jordanian nationals:

But the report for the year 2018, submitted in 2019, responded to that point:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler Sends A Letter to Attorney General Barr

In August, in response to a June letter from Rabbis asking him to seek the enforcement of US-Jordanian extradition treaty, Rep. Jerrold Nadler -- Chair of the House Judiciary Committee -- sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr, asking him for answers:

Nadler and Collins wrote in their joint letter to the Justice Department that “we understand that the government of Jordan has argued that a 1995 extradition treaty between the United States and Jordan is not in effect, and that Jordan’s constitution forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals.” They asked the department to provide “information regarding the current status” of the efforts to “overcome these objections.”

Haaretz Article Draws A Response

The whole issue of bringing Tamimi to justice has generally not been picked up in the media. That changed on November 7, when the English-edition of Haaretz featured an article describing how U.S. Rejects Jordan's Refusal to Extradite Hamas Terrorist Wanted for Trial. It was a high-profile article, based on an interview with Arnold Roth himself. And it drew a response from the Arab world For example, just 4 days later, Yahya Al-Saud -- the Jordanian MP and chairman of Palestine Committee in the Jordanian Parliament -- spoke out publicly that the Jordanian government should not extradite Tamimi, adding that "she did not commit a crime, but defended her country." Also in November, the Jordanian news site JO24.net featured the Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Ayman Hussein Abdullah Al-Safadi who spoke publicly about the Jordan's refusal to extradite Tamimi:

Jordan 24 - 

Ayman al-Safadi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Affairs, affirmed that several American bodies requested Jordan to extradite her, Jordanian citizen Ahlam Al-Tamimi, noting that Jordan respects and abides by the law, “and the law does not allow this.”

On his blog, This Ongoing War, Arnold Roth thoroughly debunks al-Safadi's defense of Jordan's refusal in a post entitled Thank you, Mr Foreign Minister

2020

It has been a busy year so far.

Congress Responds to Jordan's Refusal to Extradite

Though actually signed in December 2019, Congress's H.R.1865 - Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020, includes a provision for withholding funds from countries that refuse to extradite:

Extradition Sec. 7055. (a) Limitation.—None of the funds appropriated in this Act may be used to provide assistance (other than funds provided under the headings “International Disaster Assistance”, “Complex Crises Fund”, “International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement”, “Migration and Refugee Assistance”, “United States Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance Fund”, and “Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related Assistance”) for the central government of a country which has notified the Department of State of its refusal to extradite to the United States any individual indicted for a criminal offense for which the maximum penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or for killing a law enforcement officer, as specified in a United States extradition request. [emphasis added] (b) Clarification.—Subsection (a) shall only apply to the central government of a country with which the United States maintains diplomatic relations and with which the United States has an extradition treaty and the government of that country is in violation of the terms and conditions of the treaty. (c) Waiver.—The Secretary of State may waive the restriction in subsection (a) on a case-by-case basis if the Secretary certifies to the Committees on Appropriations that such waiver is important to the national interest of the United States.

Fox News Covers the Story

In another high-profile article, on January 29, Fox News reported Most wanted female terrorist lives in freedom in Jordan despite extradition request for bombing that killed Americans, based on an interview with Arnold Roth, giving more exposure to the search for justice.

More Congressmen Speak Out

Earlier this month, Congressman Greg Steube sent a letter to Jordanian Ambassador Dina Kawar, demanding Tamimi's extradition. It is signed by 6 other Congressmen -- all Republicans.

The letter does more than urge the government to push for extradition. The Congressmen directly confront Jordan's refusal to extradite:

The mention that "Jordan had extradited terrorists to the United States multiple times" is a reference to Mohammad Zaki Amawi and Nader Saadeh -- dual citizens of both the US and Jordan -- whom Jordan turned over to the US in 2006 and 2015 respectively. The letter also discusses H.R.1865, mentioned above, and the possibility of utilizing that option.

More Reactions From Jordan

On May 14, Arnold Roth wrote a post, In Jordan, they're standing with confessed bomber Tamimi but worried. He reviews 19 different responses in the Arab media to the recent pressure. A number of them repeat the claim that the original extradition treaty is not valid -- without addressing the fact that Jordan has in fact extradited terrorists to the US in the past. On May 16, in a post The friends of Jordanian fugitive Ahlam Tamimi, including her lawyers, are speaking up. But not all of them, he notes that despite the claim that Jordan is defending its refusal to extradite based on its adherence to "the law" --

Neither the clever lawyers nor the Islamist spokesperson bother to address what Tamimi happily confesses to doing at Sbarro. They have nothing to say about the people murdered there that day (or daughter Malki among them) or about any of the simple, well-framed questions that Jordan's ambassador in Washington has not yet mannaged to answer.

He concludes that while in years past Ahlam Tamimi was supremely confident of her position in Jordan, she shows signs of being just a bit uneasy:

Evidently with all the media activity going on in her support, Tamimi is still waiting for the people who count, those in Jordan's royal palace a short distance from her home, to step up. And as we point out here, she gives the impression of someone who's running out of patience.

The Times of Israel Article

On May 5, The Times of Israel came out with an article Failed by Israel, Malki Roth’s parents hope US can extradite her gloating killer, written by David Horovitz -- the founding editor of Times of Israel.

His article stands out not only for its breadth and attention to detail, but also how Horovitz interviewed not only Arnold Roth and his wife Frimet, but also insiders who offer insight into the roadblocks that the Roth's have had to deal with and are still dealing with in their quest to bring Tamimi to justice. A Hebrew edition is due out in the coming days, marking the first serious engagement by any part of Israel's Hebrew-oriented media with the Roth's battle to see their child's killer extradited.

There is finally enough exposure and attention paid to Jordan's protecting a terrorist to generate action from Congress and government bodies. In turn, there is increased coverage even in the Arab media and the Jordanian government itself has felt the need to respond. But there is still a long way to go. The US government clearly has the means to apply pressure on Jordan to comply with its extradition request. However, it has yet to show a readiness to do what is necessary. The question remains as to how dedicated the US government is to seeing justice done for American victims of terrorism.

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Obsession: Israel’s occupation of Iranian media is nearly complete

Israel isn’t the topic of 100% of the articles in Iranian media today, but it is damned close.

The amount of mind-space that Israel takes up in Iran’s leaders’ minds is something to behold.

 

 

 

 

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Hanan Ashrawi says why the PLO pretends to be against terror; claims AIPAC told Dem candidates to drop out; "settlements stole ancient Palestinian village names"

 

Earlier this week, Hanan Ashrawi of the PLO spoke to CAABU, the Council for Arab British Understanding. In front of her friendly audience she revealed her ugly hate and antisemitism yet again.

She described why the PLO has officially embraced non-violence.

Of course the Palestinians will resist. There is one thing that has been constant regardless of the degree of pain and victimization, the Palestinians have never accepted this enslavement, have never accepted to be held captive and they have always resisted using a variety of means. We have adopted the nonviolent or popular resistance as a means of resistance because, of course, the violent resistance is going to play into Israel’s hands but it also in many ways will not get to anywhere and we will get labeled as terrorists.

She doesn’t say that blowing up Jews is immoral or wrong. On the contrary, all means of “resistance” are valid, but for tactical reasons the PLO doesn’t want the world to know that it embraces terror so it has, for now, abandoned that method. Meaning, if tomorrow the political calculation changes, the PLO can easily move back into suicide bombing.

It is of course absurd to say that an organization that turns terrorists into heroes and that literally pays salaries to those whose only accomplishments in life were to kill Jews has embraced nonviolence. It is purely a result of the West’s disapproval that they have chosen to let Hamas and Islamic Jihad take the terror role at this time.

Ashrawi also discussed how she thinks that AIPAC instructed the Democratic candidates to withdraw from the race - of course, why else would they abandon campaigning except to obey their Jewish masters? -  and how, she says, AIPAC was behind Elizabeth Warren not endorsing Bernie Sanders.

We felt that for the first time there was the courage to stand up: to stand up to AIPAC,to stand up to all attempts at intimidation. And look what happened: when AIPAC decided to raise funds to stop Sanders, and they called it the “Stop Sanders movement,” and then they managed to get most of the other candidates to drop their candidacy, and to endorse Biden and then even Elizabeth Warren did not endorse Sanders she stayed silent, and sometimes silence is the recourse of the cowardly.

There are a lot of lies in this talk – pretending that a Palestinian state would be democratic and give equal rights to Jews and Christians, for example. But this one was so ridiculous it deserves to be highlighted: 

In the Old City of Jerusalem the transformation of the character of the city by creating a forgery of the city, the negation of our own narrative our own history our own culture. Even the the settlements that they built, they steal the name of a village next to it so they can compete over the history! The settlements adopt the names and appropriate the names of ancient Palestinian villages and then they can say ‘we were there before.’

Those Jews, rebuilding the ancient Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, are “forging” the city. uh-huh.

And the settlements are taking the names of “ancient Palestinian villages”? Virtually every Jewish community takes its name from a Biblical source! It is the Palestinian towns that have stolen the Hebrew names, such as

Beit Jalla is the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, Jenin was Ein Ganim, Silwan was Shiloach, Selum was Shilo (one of the first capitals of ancient Israel), Tequa is Tekoa (the Prophet Amos’s hometown), Anata was Anatot (the Prophet Jeremiah’s hometown), Batir was Beitar,  Beitin was Beit El (as named by Jacob himself), Jaba was Geva, Mukhmas is Michmash (King Saul’s fortress), and El-Jib was Giv’on (where the sun stood still).

Not to mention that Jerusalem preceded “Al Quds,” Hebron and Kiryat Arba preceded “Al Khalil,” Shechem preceded “Nablus.”

Ashrawi is an antisemitic liar.

(h/t iTi)

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EoZTV: Interview with Raymond Ibrahim about Islam

I thoroughly enjoyed last night's EoZTV interview with historian and scholar Raymond Ibrahim, whose provocative views on Islam have gotten him labeled a "white supremacist" by CAIR - even though his family is Egyptian Copt.

We spoke about the Muslim view of Jerusalem, why Muslims are more upset over Jews controlling land in Israel than Christians having regained Spain,  the violent spread of Islam through North Africa and Europe through its early centuries , Muslim "unity," whether there is any real Muslim legacy in philosophy, arts and science, and most provocatively whether Islam's violent mindset as prescribed in the later teachings of the Quran can be changed.

Check it out!

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05/21 Links Pt2: 'Har Habayit Beyadenu' - The Temple Mount is in our hands!; Democratic senators release letter warning Israel against annexation; Dan Aykroyd’s Love of Vodka and Israel

From Ian:

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'Har Habayit Beyadenu' - The Temple Mount is in our hands!

In March 1968, J. B. Priestley, an English novelist, playwright and broadcaster, asked Weisgal the same question. Weisgal told Priestley about a cartoon in the Israeli press by the cartoonist Dosh showing Yisrolik, a little guy with a cap, who had become a symbol of the young state, explaining to King Hussein of Jordan how he might get back parts of Jerusalem. “Do what we did,” he told the king. “Say over and over again for two thousand years’ Next year in Jerusalem.’”

The phrase Next Year in Jerusalem “has been the umbilical cord which has tied the Jews of the world to the land of Israel for two thousand years,” Weisgal explained. “Jewish religious ritual and liturgy and biblical, medieval and modern literature is pervaded with longing for Zion. Agricultural and meteorological conditions in Israel are also a fundamental part of this identification."

-During January, when the cities in the Northeast might be covered with snow, Jewish children plant saplings because in Israel, it is the New Year of the Trees, when the almonds blossom for the first time. Even though the streets might be soaked from torrential rains in October, Jews pray that it should rain in Israel. The harvest has ended and the fields are parched. No other space on earth arouses such fervor and passion among the Jews, and infinite sacrifice to bring back the land to life. [1]

-When the Jews began to rebuild the land, they found the Valley of Jezreel infested with malaria. Today it is the agricultural heartland of the country. Reclamation cost the lives of hundreds of Jewish pioneers. No one forced them to engage in this dangerous work, yet they did so because it was their land. (Ibid)

-Observant Jews believed that simply by inhabiting the land, they were guaranteed a place in the world to come, while anyone who permanently left “is like a man who has no G-d.” [2[

On the 28th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar ( June 7 in 1967) Israeli paratroopers captured the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, the portion of the Western supporting wall of the Temple Mount that remained since the destruction of the Second Temple (70 C.E.) When they reached the Wall, many of the secular soldiers who were not observant were overcome with emotion. One soldier remembered looking around at the officers and the other soldiers:

“I saw their tears, their wordless prayers, and I knew they felt as I did: a deep feeling for the Temple Mount… a love for the Wall on whose stones so many generations have wept. I understood that it wasn’t only I and my religious friends who sensed its greatness and sanctity; others felt it too, no less deeply and strongly.”

The Holy Six Day War

During the annual Yom HaAzmaut celebration at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in Jerusalem, some three weeks before the Six Day War, the Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook, gave a powerful and prophetic speech to the students and gathered guests, describing his initial anguished reaction when he had heard the news, some twenty years previously, that the United Nations had voted to partition the Land of Israel in approving the creation of a truncating Jewish State. While joyous Israelis danced outside on the streets, he sat at home, stunned by the announcement that the Inheritance of Hashem and Jerusalem had been cut into pieces and divided. Raising his voice, he shouted, “THEY DIVIDED OUR LAND!” Everyone in the hall was silent. “AND WHERE IS OUR HEVRON? AND OUR SHECHEM? WHERE IS EVERY METER OF THE LAND WHICH HASHEM BEQUEATHED TO US ALONE?! HAVE WE FORGOTTEN THAT ALL OF THE LAND IS OURS?!”

One of the yeshiva’s students, that late HaRav Yehuda Hazani wrote down his teacher’s words. “Yehuda had a phenomenal memory,” his wife, Hannah, told the Jewish Press. “After he made a neat copy of his scribbled writing, he showed it to HaRav Tzvi Yehuda for final editing, and then arranged for its publication in the HaTzofet newspaper. At the time, no one in the country spoke about our returning to Judea and Samaria, nor about capturing the Temple Mount. The idea was like a science fiction. Then, three weeks later, it came true.”

At the same time, in the late spring of 1967, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Chief Rabbi of Tzahal, was in Australia, raising money for Israel Bonds, when he read in a local newspaper that Egypt’s President Nasser had closed down the Straits of Tiran leading to Eilat. At Nasser’s request, United Nations Peace Keeping Forces abandoned the Sinai Peninsula, and vast numbers of Egyptian tanks and infantry units were stationed along the Israeli border. Certain that the belligerent actions would lead to war, Rabbi Goren decided to fly back home to Israel. “In a matter of weeks, I will pray at the Kotel and on Mount Sinai as well,” he prophesied to the large crowd at his farewell appearance in Australia.

In Israel, the population was seized with worry and despair. Nasser’s promises to drive the Jewish State into the sea had unnerved the country. The armies of Syria and Jordan were mobilized to join Egypt in a devastating attack. Israel’s top military echelon advised Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, the acting Defense Minister, to strike first before Israel’s forces received a deadly blow, but the cautious and aging politician wanted to give the Administration in Washington time to convince Nasser to withdraw his forces and allow the UN troops to return to their positions. The IDF brass disagreed, not wanting to put the fate of the country in foreign hands, by counting on America to save it from extinction.

Remembering the "Road of Heroism"

Only one road supplied the people of Jerusalem in 1948 and suddenly they faced a dire situation. In the fourteen day old State of Israel, the future of the New City of Jerusalem hung in the balance. It was a week since vital supplies had arrived. The people of Jerusalem faced starvation. They needed medicine. Weapons were required to repel attacks.

A hastily constructed makeshift bypass road saved the city and perhaps the newly reborn State of Israel.

Following the passage of UN resolution 181, which divided the land into a proposed Jewish and Arab state, irregular Arab forces took control of the hills overlooking the road to Jerusalem from the coast and often attacked the road, firing upon convoys bringing supplies, causing heavy losses. Food shortages in Jerusalem were acute.

From April 4-20, the Haganah launched Operation Nachshon which succeeded in forcing through convoys of supplies. On May 8, for the next week, the Haganah launched Operation Macabi against Arab irregular troops occupying towns along the road threatening convoys.

Following the establishment of Israel on May 14, the situation facing the supply line to the New City of Jerusalem became even more perilous.

Three days after the May 15th exit of British forces from the strategically vital area of Latrun and its fortifications, which overlook the road to Jerusalem, it was seized by the Jordanian Arab Legion which then prevented convoys from reaching the road to the Holy City..

Costly attempts by Jewish forces to regain the strategic site over the next two weeks failed.

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Iran's insane view of the world comes out for Quds Day

The Tehran Times has an article for "International Quds Day" that is delusional.

I'll post the whole article, but fisking the entire thing would be way too time consuming. A few comments will suffice.

The decades-old crisis surrounding Palestine is universal. The crisis has not only imposed its negative impacts on the Palestinian geographical territory and the West Asian region, it has also badly affected the entire Islamic world and other world nations.

When your curriculum and media are filled with articles on how Jews and Israelis are the worst people in the world, it tends to affect those who learn that.

Prolongation of the occupation of Palestine has influenced the involved societies in various social, cultural, economic, security, military, and humanitarian aspects. The main reason behind such a devastating prolonged occupation is a plot engineered by the hegemonic powers. Such a conflict could only be materialized via the establishment of the military regime of Israel in the region as well as the occupation of Palestine.
The Zionism, using its media power and its influence on the hegemonic powers, has tried through history to create this view in the world public opinion that the mentioned crisis is restricted to the Palestinian geography or finally Muslim nations. But Imam Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, called such a plot by the Tel Aviv regime global arrogance of global Zionism.

"The Zionism" uses "its media power" "through history." Uh-huh.

Colonialism has experienced a bitter confrontation with the Islamic civilization. Following the emergence of Islam and its spread across the region, a powerful civilization was formed with its own cultural, scientific, military, and economic characteristics. Wherever the newly-formed civilization arrived it was welcomed by the hosting nations. The West, which was seemingly Christian but in fact was materialistic and profit-seeking had found the new civilization as an obstacle to its colonial projects.

When Western ideas spread, it is colonialism. When Islam spreads, it is welcomed by the people being brutally conquered. Good to know.

Also good to know that the West was colonialist in the 9th century.

   
The West further resorted to getting the world involved in two great devastating wars to undermine the influence of Islamic civilization. In 1916, during World War I, the Great Ottoman Empire was broken down within the framework of a colonial plot named the Sykers-Picot plan which ended in the formation of a variety of political factions and movements in the West Asia region.

   And you thought those two world wars had something to do with Germany, and not a western war against Islam. Silly you.

At the same time, the establishment of the military regime of Israel in Palestine assisted the West to prevent revival of any new Islamic civilization via escalating tensions, insecurity, and disputes in the region.

Following the plot for establishment of Israel and occupation of Palestine and the creation of the Zionist regime, the Islamic world has been involved in continuous tensions that have inflicted heavy losses on regional nations.

This is hilarious. For decades, Israel was the one thing that kept the Muslim nations even a little unified!

West Asia enjoys rich resources of crude and natural gas, tourism capacities, and wonderful geographical status. But regrettably the entire region is suffering from an old problem. The wealth produced in the region is invested in Western countries or deposited in Western banks due to lack of sustainable security in regional countries.
According to a World Bank report, the oil-producing Arab countries have invested over $4,000 billion in the United States. This is a hefty amount of money that can cover a large number of industrial, scientific, and research projects in the U.S. and provide a situation for Washington to grant $4 billion to Israel annually.

Hold on - are you telling me that Israel only gets one tenth of one percent of the amount the the Arab world invests in the US? That is a pretty bad return on investment!

If we look at the Zionist regime's damages to the entire region from the above-mentioned viewpoint, we admire Imam Khomeini's wise and accurate view which called the Zionist regime a “cancerous tumor”. Imam Khomeini called for the elimination of Israel and initiated the International Quds Day in efforts to remove this tumor.
As Imam Khomeini wished, the International Quds Day will unite the entire oppressed people worldwide to form a global movement to settle international disputes.
In fact, Imam Khomeini, via initiating the International Quds Day, offered the people around the globe to think about a world without Zionism, without colonialism, and without hegemonic powers.
The growing mystery behind opposing Israel and honoring the International Quds Day have their roots in the deep pleasure of thinking about a world without Israel and arrogant powers.

If the thought of a world without Israel brings you deep pleasure, then be prepared to pleasurably dream about it for many, many more years.

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Arab Demonization Of Israel An Israeli Plot To Keep Out Arabs Fleeing Arab Tyranny (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, May 21 - Document leaks from within an Israeli intelligence organization revealed this week that longstanding animosity from surrounding Arab states, by those states' own accounts an expression of opposition to Jewish sovereignty on land they consider Arab Muslim, in fact occurs as the intentional product of a secret Israeli propaganda campaign to prevent people from those neighboring countries from wanting to get to the Jewish state to escape the oppression and misery they face in their own lands.

Journalists obtained documents on Wednesday that appear to describe a decades-old program to fan the flames of anti-Israel sentiment in neighboring states, through measures that appear to mesh seamlessly with those countries' own official propaganda, but in fact are calculated to maintain a level of Israel-hate in those populations high enough to ensure that residents of those Arab countries never consider escaping to Israel to enjoy freedoms and rights they could never experience in their native lands.

Selections from documents from the Mossad, among with at least one other organization that does not officially exist, reached reporters yesterday, documents that refer to an initiative called Operation Repulse. Sketchy details from several of the documents point to operations going back at least to 1965 in which government-controlled media in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen, and at least four other countries not named directly, were co-opted or deceived into exaggerating anti-Israel sentiment beyond the level each respective regime had prescribed. Unsuspecting broadcasters, publishers, pundits, and other figures in those countries played into Israel's scheme to make the Jewish state such an unappealing place in Arab eyes that few fugitives from those lands would aim for refuge or absorption there - despite Israel's comparative freedom, prosperity, tolerance, and general welfare, a gap that has only increased through the decades. Israeli leaders feared becoming overwhelmed by Arab refugees whose sheer numbers would negate the country as a Jewish state, the only one in the world and thus the only guaranteed refuge for Jews themselves fleeing persecution.

Political and bureaucratic superiors of the Arab figures carrying the overstated vitriol seldom suffered for their apparent excess gusto in conveying it to their audiences; in at least four documented cases those figures found career advancement as a result of what their superiors interpreted as welcome enthusiasm for the task at hand.

Security officials declined to comment or to answer questions whether Repulse has continued into the twenty-first century, even to today, but one acknowledged that it became increasingly difficult to generate the level of hate necessary to stay unwelcoming in Arab eyes as Israel's economy, culture, safety, and stability surged in the last thirty years.

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05/21 Links Pt1: Abbas cries wolf again, and Israel stays silent; Hungary, Austria stand against rest of EU blasting Israel; Iran has banned all use of Israeli tech. Really? That would set it back 50 years

From Ian:

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Lee Smith: How Russiagate Began With Obama’s Iran Deal Domestic Spying Campaign

Meanwhile, Flynn continued to do the job the president had chosen him for. After Iran conducted a ballistic missile test and its Yemeni proxies attacked a Saudi naval ship, he announced in the White House press room: “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” Former Obama aides fumed: The Trump administration had no choice but to stay in the JCPOA. Then they flipped through the dog-eared pages of the Iran Deal playbook and pushed into the press rumors regarding the loyalties of a combat veteran who served his country in uniform for more than three decades. Had Michael Flynn sold out his country to Russia?

On Feb. 9, Entous finally got his chance to publish the leaked intercept of the Kislyak call. He and Washington Post colleagues Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima found nine current and former U.S. officials to confirm that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian. It went unremarked that the article provided evidence of yet another leak of Flynn’s name from a classified intercept, and thus proof of a massive spying operation targeting the Trump team.

Trump had been warned. Obama was serious when he told him not to bring on Flynn. The new president’s hand was forced, and the national security adviser left the White House on Feb. 13. Within the year, prosecutors from Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation threatened to charge Flynn’s son with lobbying violations if he didn’t plead guilty to making false statements to the FBI.

By then, Russiagate was in overdrive—one of the most destructive conspiracy theories in U.S. history was well on its way to poisoning minds around the country. It appeared to cast an even deeper spell on the elite urban classes whose peers in the press and government had fueled it in the name of “resisting” Trump. And yet only a small fraction of those who imagined themselves to have the inside story of the Trump team’s secret collusion with Russia to defeat Clinton understood the origins of the fantasy world they had been engulfed by.

Russiagate was not a hoax, as some conservative journalists call it. Rather, it was a purposeful extension of the Obama administration’s Iran Deal media campaign, and of the secret espionage operation targeting those opposed to Obama’s efforts to realign American interests with those of a terror state that embodies the most corrosive forms of anti-Semitism.

It’s not hard to see why the previous president went after Flynn: The retired general’s determination to undo the Iran Deal was grounded in his own experience in two Middle Eastern theaters of combat, where he saw how Iran murdered Americans and threatened American interests. But why Obama would choose the Islamic Republic as a partner and encourage tactics typically employed by third-world police states remain a mystery.

PA refuses UAE aid sent via Israel, won’t be ‘tool for normalization’ – report

The Palestinian Authority government has refused to accept medical aid from the United Arab Emirates after it arrived on the first known direct commercial flight between Israel and the UAE, PA sources told multiple Arab media outlets.

The UAE-based airline made history Tuesday, as the plane loaded with 16 tons of coronavirus aid for Palestinians flew directly from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv.

Palestinian media, as well as Russia Today Arabic, quoted a government source Thursday saying the aid had been rejected, explaining Ramallah was refusing to be used as a “tool for normalization” between Israel and the UAE. The two countires do not have diplomatic relations.

The source reportedly said the transfer of the medical aid had only been coordinated with Israel and the World Health Organization (WHO), and not with the Palestinian Authority which governs Palestinians in the West Bank.

That, the source claimed, indicated that the UAE intended to use the aid to improve its ties with Jerusalem on the “pretext” of aid to Palestinians.

The source said any assistance to the Palestinian people must be provided through coordination with Palestinian authorities.

The Etihad cargo jet, painted in all white and lacking any marking, landed at Ben-Gurion Airport after seemingly flying a roundabout route through Iraq and either Jordan or Turkey.

Etihad, a state-owned long-haul carrier, confirmed the flight to Ben Gurion Airport. Emirati government officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Shtayyeh: UAE did not coordinate with us delivery of medical supplies

The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday that it was unaware of the arrival of a United Arab Emirates (UAE) plane carrying humanitarian aid for the Palestinians at Ben-Gurion Airport.

Earlier, Palestinian sources said that the PA refused to receive the UAE aid because it was being transmitted through Israel.
According to the sources, the PA was outraged because the UAE chose to deliver the aid through Israel, and not directly to the Palestinians. Some PA officials and political activists accused the UAE of “promoting normalization” with Israel by allowing the plane to land at Ben-Gurion Airport.

The Etihad Airlines flight, direct from Abu Dhabi, landed in Israel on Tuesday night and was the first flight ever from the UAE to Israel. The cargo flight carried humanitarian aid for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including 16 tons of medical supplies, personal protective equipment and 10 ventilators. The aid is in line with the United Nations COVID-19 Response Plan for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shatayyeh told reporters in Ramallah that the Palestinians were unaware of the arrival of the UAE aid at Ben-Gurion Airport.

“We have heard in the news that there is a United Arab Emirates plane carrying medical supplies to the Palestinians,” Shtayyeh said. “This issue has never been coordinated with us and we have never been notified about it. Our ambassador in the United Arab Emirates does not know about it. It was not coordinated with us at all.”

Relations between the PA and UAE have been strained over the Gulf state’s embracing of former Fatah official Mohammed Dahlan, an arch-rival of Abbas.

You may have heard that UAE made its first direct flight to Tel Aviv to bring Palestinians aid to fight COVID-19.

Get this. The Palestinian Authority HAS REFUSED IT because UAE cooperated with Israel to facilitate its delivery.

Once again: Hatred for us > Love of their children pic.twitter.com/yRVdP6dhzr

— The Mossad: Espionage at = 2 metres (@TheMossadIL) May 21, 2020

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Iran's Supreme Leader: "I'm not against Jews - I just want to ethnically cleanse six million of them"

 

The Ayatollah Khamenei said Wednesday on Twitter, "Eliminating the Zionist regime doesn’t mean eliminating Jews. We aren’t against Jews. It means abolishing the imposed regime & allowing Muslim, Christian & Jewish Palestinians to elect their own govt & expel foreigner thugs like Netanyahu. This is “Eliminating Israel” & it will happen."

But Netanyahu was born in Israel. How can he be a "foreigner thug?"

The answer comes from our post yesterday where Iran says that all Jews who came to he area after 1917 are not considered to be residents, but foreigners. Netanyahu's father Ben Zion only came to Palestine in 1920, so - according to Iran - some six million Jews who have lived in Israel their entire lives are foreigners who must be expelled.

So Khamenei is saying that six million Jews in Israel whose ancestors were not there over a hundred years ago, including millions who were born and spent their entire lives in Israel, are "foreigner thugs" who  be ethnically cleansed in his "final solution."

But he's not against Jews!

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If all agreements with Israel are void, then the Palestinian Authority should disappear

Mahmoud Abbas announced on Tuesday that "The Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine are absolved, as of today, of all the agreements and understandings with the American and Israeli governments and of all the obligations based on these understandings and agreements, including the security ones."

This image pretty much demonstrates how the Palestinian leadership is built on lies.

 

Mohammad Shtayyeh's job is the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. The PNA was created by....an agreement between Israel and the PLO, in the Gaza-Jericho Agreement:

ARTICLE III

TRANSFER OF AUTHORITY

1. Israel shall transfer authority as specified in this Agreement from the Israeli military government and its Civil Administration to the Palestinian Authority, hereby established, in accordance with Article V of this Agreement, except for the authority that Israel shall continue to exercise as specified in this Agreement.

If all agreements between Israel and the PLO are null and void, Shtayyeh is out of a job.

But he is on the phone with world leaders - including the leader of Norway, which hosted the Oslo Accords that Abbas just claimed he has ended.

Now, the PLO would claim that Shtayyeh is prime minister of the "State of Palestine," which they claim the Palestinian Authority became in 2013.

But as usual, the Palestinians will make contradictory claims, based on the circumstances and who they are talking to.

In 2016, way after the supposed change of the PA/PNA to the "State of Palestine," Mahmoud Abbas said, “The Palestinian Authority exists and it is here. It will be followed by a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority is one of our achievements and we won’t give it up."

So even he admits there is no "State of Palestine" and that the PA is the current government.

Either way, the government only exists because of the Oslo process. If all agreements are null and void, then Israel no longer has to send over tax revenue to the PA. It doesn't have to provide electricity to the PA. It can close the borders, or take over land, or do anything it wants as the "occupying power."

Obviously Abbas doesn't want to lose the land, money and other power he controls. It is all a sham meant to frighten the West into pressuring Israel. And all the proof you need is Mohammad Shtayyeh on the phone in a job he should no longer have if Abbas was telling the truth.

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Palestinian Authority refuses COVID-19 aid FROM ARABS - because it came through Israel

 

On Tuesday, the news broke that a Etihad Airways plane loaded with tons of COVID-19 aid from the UAE landed in Israel, the first known time a commercial flight from the UAE ever came to Ben Gurion Airport.

Today, Israeli media reports that the Palestinian Authority has refused to accept the aid.

Kan News reports that the PA refused the medical aid,  saying the Abu Dhabi authorities have not coordinated the shipment with them at all, and the manner in which aid is sent is not acceptable to the PA.

"If the UAE wants to normalize with Israel, then it shouldn't be on our backs," a Palestinian source told Kan.

In fact, the aid was coordinated with the UN. The aid was sent through the UN's World Food Program and was facilitated by the UN's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO.)  it included included 16 tons of medical supplies, including 10 ventilators and protective equipment.

For months now, anti-Israel activists have been falsely accusing Israel of withholding COVID-19 aid to Palestinians as a political tool. As is always the case, this is projection on their part: the only side refusing aid for political purposes are the Palestinians. And the Palestinian Authority has been limiting medical aid to Gaza as well.

Western observers cannot wrap their heads around those who would sacrifice their own people's lives for "honor" reasons.  Yet it is honor and shame that drives virtually all decisions in the Arab and Muslim worlds, more than human life, far more than the desire for peace. Every "expert" who says that there would be peace if only Israel would do more - more concessions, allowing descendants of refugees to "return," releasing terrorists from prison, dividing Jerusalem - is ignorant, because Israel's existence is the real issue, and the shame that the weak, dhimmi Jews overpowered the combined armies of the mighty warrior Arab world is too much for the Palestinians to overcome. Generations brainwashed by "Nakba" propaganda are not going to accept peace with Israel, because peace is not as important as pride, and Jews controlling land in the region is too shameful.

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The Manufactured Outrage over “Annexation” (Vic Rosenthal)

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column

Annexation. The word is spat out with such vitriol that one would think that what is contemplated is mass murder. From Mahmoud Abbas to Jordan’s King Abdullah, to the European Union, to Justin Trudeau, the condemnations, warnings, and threats continue to flow. And of course, Joe Biden had his say.

A few words about the reality behind the so-called “annexation.” To start with, nothing is being annexed. It is the reasonable position of the Israeli government that it is sovereign in Judea and Samaria according to international law; and you can’t annex something that already belongs to you. But wait, you say, virtually the entire world disagrees, as is pointed out ad nauseum by sources like the BBC and the NY Times. Unhappily for them and the Palestinians they empathize with, international law is neither a popularity contest nor subject to a majority vote in the UN General Assembly. It is quite possible that the Government of Israel is right and “virtually the entire world” is wrong. This isn’t an article about that, but if you are interested, here is a good one.

The government calls it “extension of Israeli civil law,” and that is because presently those parts of Judea and Samaria that are not under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) are subject to a military government (this is the case whether residents are Israelis or Palestinians).
Those who are so up in arms about the proposal also like to say that “Israel plans to annex the West Bank.” The correct formulation is that Israel proposes to extend its civil law to certain parts of Judea and Samaria where Jewish communities exist, and to most of the Jordan Valley, with the exception of Jericho, with its large Arab population. It’s important to note that almost no Arabs live in the areas in question. Those that do will be offered full Israeli citizenship, just like the Arabs of Jerusalem – or Haifa, or Yafo.

The Jordan Valley has always been considered an area that must be under Israeli control in any permanent establishment of borders, because it is essential to Israel’s defense. No “two-state solution” that did not recognize this would ever be accepted by Israel. And neither would one which included the ethnic cleansing of Jews and the destruction of their communities in Judea and Samaria.

The furor over “annexation” is an excuse to attack Israel and the Trump plan, which is the first real breakthrough in diplomatic efforts to end the conflict since the unfortunate Oslo Accords institutionalized it.

The Palestinians have adopted a paradigm of the conflict in which Israel is entirely at fault. Justice, they say, requires that we vacate “their” land – in fact, if you asked them, they would say that this includes everything from the river to the sea; they believe they are being generous by just asking for Judea and Samaria (at least, for now). But this paradigm is wrong. In fact, we are the ones who have been excessively generous in repeatedly offering them large parts of the land, offers that were rejected because they did not provide a clear enough path to an Arab state in all of the land.

Mahmoud Abbas says that he wants a “two-state solution,” and “annexation” would make that impossible. But Abbas has always understood “two-state solution” to mean a virtually complete withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, including the expulsion of all Israelis from those areas. He also envisions the realization of a right of return (a made-up concept that doesn’t appear in international law) for the millions of descendants of the Arab refugees of 1948. He does not accept that even the portion of Israel that would remain in Jewish hands after such a “solution” would be a “Jewish state” or “the state of the Jewish people;” indeed, he has said several times that there is no Jewish people. Therefore, it isn’t inaccurate to describe Abbas’ two states as one exclusively Arab state and one multiethnic state that would soon have an Arab majority.
There is little likelihood that the Palestinians will abandon their paradigm and their concomitant demands, and none at all as long as they are led by the PLO and Hamas.

The Trump plan, which is the framework under which Israel is acting today, recognizes that the traditional two-state idea is a non-starter, which is why countless rounds of negotiation have failed. Therefore it does not require Palestinian agreement before starting the process that is intended to lead to permanent, recognized borders for Israel, and autonomy (although not full sovereign statehood) for the Palestinians. This is unacceptable to the Palestinians just because it makes it impossible for them to realize their actual goals, spoken only in Arabic, of replacing Israel with an Arab state.

The European Union and Obama Administration officials accepted the Palestinian paradigm, although – at least for public consumption – they also said that they supported Israel’s security and right to exist. Thus they constantly reiterate as a mantra “two-state solution.” This position is self-contradictory.

Joe Biden, who wants to be President of the US, also favors a “two-state solution” and opposes “annexation.” He must: to do otherwise would lose the left wing of the Democratic base, as well as put him on the same side as his opponent. I don’t know how he feels personally about there being a Jewish state, if he has ever asked himself this question, or indeed if he has any actual ideas beyond wanting to be President. But I do know that he lent himself to the Obama Administration’s attempts to pressure Israel.

Back in May of 2010, while Biden was visiting Israel – Obama himself chose to avoid Israel until his second term, traveling to some 33 countries before then – the EU-funded Peace Now organization in Israel reported to the Americans that a regional committee had taken a preliminary step to add 200 more housing units to an existing plan to build apartments for religious Jews in Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood in Jerusalem that was outside of the Green Line. A total of about 1600 apartments were included in the plan.

Biden harshly condemned the announcement, but insisted that “There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.” However, after he returned to the US, the administration ramped up attacks on Israel, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton berated Netanyahu in angry 43-minute phone call in which she accused Israel of “insulting” the US and Biden personally, blamed Israel for preventing negotiations with the Palestinians, and demanded additional concessions to the Palestinians, including the release of terrorist prisoners, to “build confidence.”

Like today’s row over “annexation,” there was a manufactured outrage, an international pileup on Israel for its stubborn intransigence. The difference is that today the American President supports us, rather than leading the charge against us. Today it’s easy to forget 2010, when it seemed that the pressure from Washington for dangerous, even suicidal, concessions would never let up.

For what it’s worth, no new housing was built in Ramat Shlomo until 2018, when some 500 apartments were built. The promise of 1600 new units that so angered Biden and Obama in 2010 is only now being kept.

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05/20 Links Pt2: Palestinian Myths and Israeli Realities; Why isn't there an UNWRA for Jewish refugees from the Arab countries?; Spanish gov't cancels tolerance seminar by group accused of antisemitism

From Ian:

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Israel’s Miracle — 100 Years Later

The San Remo Conference recognized, in a way unprecedented in modern times, the idea of a connection between the Land of Israel and the Jewish people, and certified it as part of the Mandate charter. This documentation contradicts later invidious claims that try to break the umbilical cord connecting the Jewish people to their historic homeland, and declare Jewish settlements in the mandated territories to be a violation of international law or even a “war crime.” Even George Orwell could not have articulated better such artfully groundless accusations.

A century after the San Remo Conference, the Middle East is in the midst of substantial changes. Examining the Allied resolutions regarding the three Mandates in the Middle East from a contemporary perspective, it seems evident that the Mandates over Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq did not bring about the expected peace and prosperity, even after a century. Only violence, poverty, and continuing violations of fundamental human rights have governed these territories for the past 100 years. The future of the nation-states in these territories is as yet unclear, given the geopolitical turmoil erupting before our very eyes in the past decade, better known as the “Arab Spring.”

However, one case was different: The Jewish people established their nation-state in the Middle East 28 years after the San Remo Conference. This month also marks the 72nd anniversary of Israeli independence. The vision depicted by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, his French counterpart Alexandre Millerand, Italian Prime Minister Francesco Saverio Nitti, and the other delegates to the conference coincided with the two-millennia old yearning of the Jewish people for a return to their land, resulting in a state worthy of its name.

The boldest of ideas envisaged in San Remo, to establish a national home for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, was the one that measured up to historical expectations and proved to be a success. Indeed, of all the many resolutions by the international community pertaining to the Middle East during the past century, establishing the Jewish state has been by far the most successful, corresponding exactly to the vision and the hopes of the allied leaders gathered in San Remo.

Palestinian Myths and Israeli Realities

I like to deal in truth and reality, so here are some facts: Israel has never been called “Palestine,” at least not as a national political entity. And up until 1,420 years ago, there was no significant Arab population in this land — the ancient history of this land is demonstrably Jewish, Aramaic, and Syriac.

One need only consider the many “Palestinian” towns and villages that still carry Aramaic, Hebrew, and Syrian names.

Another truth is that Islam occupied the Levant by force, and imposed its own religion and culture in an effort to erase the region’s true Judeo-Christian heritage.

They call Israel and the Jews occupiers and colonizers — but it is Muslim Arabs who conquered, occupied, and colonized this territory, and over the course of 1,400 years, gradually transformed it into Arab Islamic lands.

But no matter what your views of the past are, Israel is today a reality. And we must recognize it for what it is — a nation working to restore its historic roots in this land. We as Arabs must stop relating to Israel by way of the antisemitic saying: “The Jews are the only people who have a history, but not a nation.”

Why isn't there an UNWRA for Jewish refugees from the Arab countries?

Last Friday, the Palestinians commemorated “Nakba Day,” as they do every year to describe the “disaster” of the founding of the State of Israel, especially the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, a result of the war instigated by the Arab states against Israel on the eve of the declaration of its independence.

According to official data of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, in the early 1950s, UNRWA took upon itself to resolve the needs of approximately 750,000 Palestinian refugees, despite this number being debatable. The UN coordinator numbered only 427,000 in Israel at the time, of which 360,000 required assistance.

Do you know the number of Jewish refugees who was expelled or escaped from Arab countries in the wake of that same Declaration of Independence? Eight hundred and fifty thousand.

I am not participating in the “Oppression Olympics” here, rather I’m pointing out the conflicting narratives. Even though in ‘48 there already existed a UN agency whose role was to protect and assist refugees (the UNHCR), a new and exclusive refugee agency was created for the Palestinians.

The reason for this was the immense pressure applied by the Arab countries on the UN, with the purpose of immortalizing the refugee crisis as part of the struggle against the State of Israel. This, is in spite of the fact that in a research report by the Institute of Palestinian Studies in Beirut, it was raised that the majority of the Arab refugees were not exiled during the war, and that approximately 68% of them left their home without so much as seeing an Israeli soldier.

The number of Palestinian refugees continued to grow with the years, and today stand at approximately 6.5 million people scattered between the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, according to UNRWA. Contrary to other refugees, in a method that is unprecedented, the status of Palestinian Refugee is passed on as an inheritance from generation to generation, and prevents any opportunity of a pragmatic agreement with them.

This, then, is the key to understanding the narrative: Israel’s enemies never intended to assist those refugees overcome their misery.
In order to fully grasp the absurdity, we must become familiar with the parallel story of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries. In 1945, there lived across the Middle East approximately one million Jews in Arab countries. Only a few years later, there remained just a few thousand.

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Peace to Prosperity Like Every Other Peace Plan is Dead on Arrival

The problem with the Deal of the Century is that like all peace plans before it, its premise is flawed. Trump’s peace plan is based on the idea that the Arabs prefer prosperity to killing Jews. The plan also presumes that Arabs will settle for some, and not all of the land. Finally, Peace to Prosperity is predicated on the notion of perpetual Arab refusal: that the Arabs will once again say no.

The first idea: that Arabs prefer peace, is flat-out false. The Arabs prefer death above all, as expressed in this PA textbook, in use since 2006:

 “O heroes, Allah has promised you victory... Don't talk yourselves into flight… Your enemies seek life while you seek death. They seek spoils to fill their empty stomachs while you seek a Paradise as wide as are the heavens and the earth... Death is not bitter in the mouth of the believers. These drops of blood that gush from your bodies will be transformed tomorrow into blazing red meteors that will fall down upon the heads of your enemies."
[Reading and Texts Part II, Grade 8, p. 16]

The second idea: that Arabs will settle for bits and pieces of land is debunked an average of at least several times a day on American college campuses, every time a student (or Roger Waters) chants, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Or every time the PA broadcasts on its official media channels that all of Israel is "Palestine."

But the third idea, that the Jews are safe entering these negotiations because the Arabs always say no, puts the Jews in the position of negotiating in bad faith. This can only fan the flames of hatred against the Jewish people, leaving them vulnerable to accusations of insincerity and morally questionable behavior. Negotiating by pretense is not a good look for the Jewish people in a world rife with antisemitism. 

We know that President Trump means well. Trump has done much to earn the gratitude of Israel and the Jewish people. But that doesn’t mean we have to look the other way when he tries to make a deal with a people who don’t want a deal, using Jewish land as the bargaining chip.

In every peace deal, current plan not excluded, it is always Israel who is called upon to make the important sacrifices; Israel that must give up bits and pieces of Jewish indigenous territory. All in the name of achieving every American president's impossible dream: peace in the Middle East.

Would that it could be so. But the Arabs “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” said Abba Eban in 1973, during the Geneva peace talks. With Trump’s peace plan, once again it is the Arabs who are offered opportunities. For they stand to gain, Israel to lose.

Anwar Sadat admitted as much. "After all, I got back … the Sinai and the Alma oil fields, and what has Menachem got? A piece of paper," said Sadat in a 1980 interview appearing in the New York Times. 

The Arabs get money, land, a state. The Jews get what? The absence of violence? A building freeze? Permission to say they are sovereign over their indigenous territories?

None of these things are real as compared to cash and land. The Jews get nothing but promises and statements of intent. They only give: only lose.

The Trump plan is well meant, but paternalistic. It tells the Arabs that if they behave for four years, they will get all the spoils of war: the money and the land. But if there are any violations, the deal ends, and Israel is off the hook from here on in as far as the Arabs are concerned, no muss no fuss.

But what practically, would this mean? That when Peace to Prosperity inevitably falls apart and Arabs resume their attacks on Jewish Israelis, that the violence directed at Israel will no longer be considered to be Israel’s fault? That everyone will stop blaming the victim of terror: Israel?

Is this our prize? Our spoil? And by the way, does anyone believe the world will sign off on this idea of Israel no longer being held accountable for the Arab violence against it? Or if the world does absolve Israel, will they mean it? Can Germany, for instance, be anything other than Germany—that is to say, incorrigibly antisemitic?

The main problem with Peace to Prosperity or any peace deal, of course, is that once the deal is concluded, it sets a precedent for the next round of failed negotiations. We know that whatever was on offer now, will not be enough the next time—that the ante will need upping for the next go-round.

Because that is how it always goes. Each successive peace plan is accompanied by ever more titillating tracts of (Jewish) land. And the world will keep pretending that the Arabs just want a state and will settle for less than all the land from the river to the sea. Peace to Prosperity, like all the other plans, makes this same pretense, speaking in the language of compromise, “Both Israelis and Palestinians have long-standing negotiating positions but also must recognize that compromise is necessary to move forward.”

But the only compromise stipulated, as always, is Israeli compromise. It is one-sided. It is Jews giving up their land. Both parties already understand this. And by the way, should the Jews refuse to "compromise," to give up Jewish land, all bets are off, negotiations fail, and the Arabs don’t get their money. So here again, the Jews are forced into an ugly choice, of a sinister bent: give up land or look stingy, mean, and ungrateful: a people who does not want peace.

Let’s imagine one possible outcome of Peace to Prosperity: that the Arabs promise to renounce violence and to recognize the Jewish State of Israel. Is it right or logical that the Jews should give up land—their most prized possession—for a promise and some recognition? Especially when we have never seen any indication of good faith from the Arabs or a renunciation of terror in all the years we have lived side by side if separate lives?

The text of Peace to Prosperity tells us that, “A peace agreement will be forged only when each side recognizes that it is better off with a peace agreement than without one, even one that requires difficult compromises.”

But the Arabs prefer death to peace with the Jews. They would rather die killing Jews. There is nothing anyone can give them that they would prefer to this outcome. Not money and not land. What room is there for compromise?

Word on the street is that the Jews can and should trust Trump, because he's been good to us thus far. And there is no doubt that Trump's intentions are good. He genuinely desires to make this deal: to make peace in the Middle East.

But this "deal" like all other deals, asks the Jews to give up Jewish land, as if Jewish land were something that might be bartered. This betrays a misunderstanding of the connection of the Jewish people to their land. The Land of Israel is central part to Judaism: an intrinsic part of God's covenant with Abraham.

The Jews are known as the People of the Book, and for having 613 commandments to observe, a people of rules and regulations. But a number of the commandments can only be performed in Israel. Forced to barter our land, we lose our religious liberty.

We recognize that no outsider can fully understand our connection to the land; not even a President Trump. But is it too much for us to ask the world to accept that our connection to the land exists—to stop asking the Jews to pretend or accept that Jewish land is fungible?

Indigenous territory isn’t something you can give away. Israel remains the indigenous land of the Jewish people, something holy and precious. We must not be so cavalier as to allow the land to be used as bait, and especially not assuming that the Arabs will once again say no.

President Trump no doubt means well, but it is wrong to treat the land with this way, to use it as currency. We must end the this situation in which Jews are asked to cut off bits and pieces of themselves. It's a sign of Jews in submission, and it's disrespectful to the land, as well.

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Israelis knew the British were supporting Arab forces in 1948

Haaretz published an interesting report over the weekend about how David Ben Gurion had intelligence from the French that the Arabs were going to attack Israel as soon as the British would leave, on May 15, 1948.

The report mentions a few examples of how the British helped the Arabs:

On the eve of the May 12, 1948, meeting of Minhelet Ha’am, Ben-Gurion received information from French sources to the effect that British intelligence officers and the British High Command in Egypt had succeeded in persuading King Faruq to reverse his earlier position and join the Arab war coalition.

...

Research in the archives of the French army, intelligence branch and Foreign Ministry has revealed many details about how British intelligence personnel and generals in Egypt manipulated Faruq to join in the war against Israel. Among other tactics, British agents made use of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Thousands of the organization’s members attacked and plundered Jewish and foreign property and demonstrated on the streets of the cities, demanding that the king order the army to take action to save Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and Palestine’s Muslims.

In the Negev, hundreds of the Brotherhood’s members operated against Jewish settlements. At the same time, the king was told that the Arabs’ conquest of the Negev would encourage the British Army to accede to his request to move its forces there from Egypt.

However, the most potent lure was the secret supply of weapons to the Egyptian army, in spite of the British government’s embargo on arms sales to the Middle East. In the second week of May, the French noted unusual visits by King Faruq to British army headquarters in Tel al-Kabir. Intelligence that reached the French indicated that the British officers promised the king that if he were to join the war effort, Britain would provide the Egyptian forces with the necessary weapons, ammunition and aircraft.

According to a report of the French military attaché in Cairo, during the period of May 1-25, the British Army supplied the Egyptian expeditionary force with large quantities of weapons and equipment from its Suez Canal depots, including rifles, machine guns, field artillery, ammunition, water containers and other items.

Special emphasis was placed on strengthening the Egyptian air force: It received 16 Spitfires, a number of Dakotas, air-to-ground bombs and a great deal of ammunition. The British also agreed to replace planes that were damaged. For their part, the French suspected that British officers were directly involved in planning the Egyptian offensive.

Faruq’s decision was a pivotal event for Egypt and for the entire region. Israel was now forced to fight on several fronts simultaneously: The Egyptian army advanced from the south toward Tel Aviv, while the armies of Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon attacked from the east and the north.

This was not that much of secret. Here are several articles from the May 20, 1948 Palestine Post - all about how the British were helping the Arab war effort against the Jews.

 

And from May 21:

 

And then there was this bitter page 1 editorial:

 

This all makes Israel's victory and survival in 1948 that much more impressive - it was indirectly fighting a superpower both on the military and political fronts.

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