Friday, December 30, 2016

  • Friday, December 30, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
MEMRI has translated the article that Egypt's Youm7 published a few days ago detailing the minutes of a secret meeting between top Palestinian officials and American officials including Secretary of State John Kerry and UN ambassador Susan Rice.

The Youm7 article is long, detailed and includes facsimiles of the minutes of this meeting as well as details of other meetings in mid-December between US and Palestinian officials:

According to the report, by Ahmed Gomaa, the Palestinian delegation included PLO Executive Committee secretary and negotiating team leader Saeb Erekat; Palestinian general intelligence chief Majid Faraj; Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs advisor to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud 'Abbas; Palestinian Foreign Ministry official Dr. Majed Bamya; Palestinian negotiations department official Azem Bishara; Palestinian intelligence international relations department chief Nasser 'Adwa; and head of the PLO delegation to Washington Ma'an Erekat.
The report gave the details of the Palestinian delegation's schedule during the visit, noting that "the Palestinian side began its meetings on December 12, when Saeb Erekat and Majid Faraj met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The next day, the two met with National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The entire delegation met with an American team that included four representatives of the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, for a six-hour political-strategic meeting. Majid Faraj concluded his visit with a lengthy meeting with the CIA chief."
The detailed description in the article and the images of the (at least) five pages of minutes, published only days after the UN resolution but dealing with many other topics, indicate strongly that this is not a fake news story as one often sees in Arab media.  It is largely consistent with what is known otherwise.

The Youm7 article claims that Kerry, Rice, Erekat and others talked about the resolution have been reported in Israeli media. In brief:

[T]he sides agreed to collaborate regarding a resolution on the settlements." According to the report, "during the meeting, the American side focused on coordination of positions between Washington and Ramallah regarding the resolution on the settlements, which was brought to a vote in the Security Council and adopted several days ago..."
The report stated that "the minutes of the meeting reveal American-Palestinian coordination regarding the resolution on the settlements" and that Kerry and Rice stressed that "they were willing to cooperate with a balanced resolution, and that Washington's UN mission was authorized to discuss this matter with the Palestinian representative to the UN, Ambassador Riyad Mansour." It continued: "The U.S.'s representative to the Security Council coordinated with the Palestinian ambassador on the issue of the resolution condemning the settlements."
But the article goes much further as to what was discussed in the meetings, and those details are what give it plausibility.

"When Susan Rice asked what the Palestinian response would be if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, or if a new settlement bloc was annexed, Erekat responded: 'We will directly and immediately join 16 international organizations, withdraw the PLO's recognition of Israel, and cut back our security, political, and economic ties with the Israeli occupation regime, and we will hold it fully responsible for the PA's collapse. Furthermore, we will [call] on the Arab and Islamic peoples to expel U.S. Embassies from their capitals.' Rice answered Erekat by saying: 'It seems that future matters could be very complicated, and we are all apprehensive about sitting down with Erekat because of his absolute knowledge of these matters, and because of his memory and his sincerity.' She expressed the American side's respect and friendship for Erekat, and apologized for yelling at him in March 2014."

Compare this with how the Times of Israel reported on Erekat's threats if the US embassy would move the following week:
Furthermore, said Erekat, all American embassies in the Arab world would be forced to close — not necessarily because Arab leaderships would want to close them, but because the infuriated public in the Arab world would not “allow” for the embassies to continue to operate.
Erekat noted that he held meetings last week in Washington with State Department officials, but failed to secure meetings he had sought with incoming Trump administration officials. “I don’t know any of them,” he said of Trump’s personnel.
The report goes on to show how much the US State Department loves the PLO and hates Netanyahu:

"The Palestinian delegation thanked Kerry and Rice, and expressed Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas's esteem for the views of U.S. President Barack Obama, Advisor Rice, and Secretary Kerry, and particularly for Kerry's speech at the Saban Forum in early December," the report stated, and added that the two U.S. officials had congratulated 'Abbas "for his stunning success at Fatah's Seventh General Conference and for his long and courageous speech (like those given by the late Cuban ruler Fidel Castro), during which he reiterated his positions and founding principles regarding his adherence to the peace process and his opposition to violence and terrorism in all forms."
Also according to the report, Erekat and Faraj asked Kerry and Rice "to stress in the reports of the transition to the new administration that Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas, the PLO, and the PA are partners in the peace process, and that the Palestinian president and security apparatuses are strategic partners in the struggle against terrorism on the regional and international [levels].
"[They asked] that it be emphasized that there would be bilateral Palestinian-American committees in all areas (healthcare, education, agriculture, tourism, sports, trade, security, women, youth, and more) and that the new administration would oversee them together with Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah." Additionally, the possibility of "establishing a joint database together with the Palestinian ambassador to Washington and a representative from Palestinian general intelligence" was raised.
Kerry and Rice said, according to the report, that "all the above matters will head the transitional report now being prepared by the team of the outgoing president, Barack Obama, for the new American administration." They also "praised 'Abbas's courage, positions, leadership, and adherence to the culture of peace and to peace as a strategic option, in addition to his opposition to violence and terrorism, to the ongoing security coordination, and to his being considered a uniquely strategic and courageous leader in the Middle East. The success of [Fatah's] Seventh General Conference. they [said], had effectively ended attempts by Muhammad Dahlan and others to weaken President 'Abbas, who must now act to tighten his relationship with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt."[5]
It continued: "Rice asked the Palestinian delegation to convey U.S. President Barack Obama's gratitude to Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas for honoring all his commitments to him, and added: 'Abbas was open and honest regarding all his commitments, especially regarding [Palestine] refraining from joining the 16 international organizations [as a member state].'"
Kerry and Rice also said that it was necessary "to continue American-Palestinian, Israeli-Palestinian, and American-Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation in all fields." In this context, said the report, Faraj stressed that "the cooperation between Palestinian security apparatuses [and Israel] is carried out according to the clear and direct order of Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas."

Kerry and Rice stressed that "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims to destroy the two-state solution, and Dr. Saeb Erekat foresaw Netanyahu's plan to create one state with two systems four years ago. The two said that Erekat's prediction was highly accurate, and that all Netanyahu has to offer is maintaining the status quo, in addition to guarantees to improve [Palestinian] living conditions," the report stated.
There are two things in the Youm7 report that seem strange to me. One is the parenthetical comment above comparing Abbas' speech to Castros' speeches, although they may have been referring to the length of the speech, which was over three hours long, and Kerry would know that the Palestinians loved Castro so this is a diplomatic compliment..

The other was that there were inconsistencies in the part of the minutes discussing US aid amounts to the PA, but I believe that the transcriber mixed up aid to the PA (which was reduced by Congress) and aid to the Palestinians altogether which is much more significant.

Altogether, this report is highly credible, and the State Department denials are not remotely plausible. The only other possibility I can imagine is that Russia planted the story in Youm7 to embarrass the State Department, which seems unlikely but cannot be discounted altogether. However, the details ring true with what we know about Kerry's team from other sources.



We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Thursday, December 29, 2016

  • Thursday, December 29, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
This story fascinates me:

Theresa May has attacked the current US administration over its condemnation of the Israeli government, in comments which appeared to align her with Donald Trump.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman criticised John Kerry, the outgoing US Secretary of State, after he described the Israeli government as the “most Right-wing in history”.

Mrs May does “not believe that it is appropriate” for Mr Kerry to attack the make-up of the democratically elected Israeli government, the spokesman said.

We do not… believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this case the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex,” Mrs May’s spokesman said.

“And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally. The Government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community.”

The spokesman added: “The British Government continues to believe that the only way to a lasting peace in the Middle East is through a two-state solution. We continue to believe that the construction of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is illegal.”
Why would May say that it is inappropriate to focus on settlements when that is exactly what was in the resolution that her government voted for at the UNSC only a week ago?

I think that there might be something else going on.

Most reports about the behind-the-scenes drama of the UNSC vote show that the delegates were very surprised at the US abstaining from vetoing the resolution.

That hadn't happened in many years.

The loss of the automatic US veto seems to have caused two new reactions:

One is that Israel responded harshly towards those who voted "yes," even though they had done it many times before without any complaint when the resolutions were vetoed. (That was a tactical error on Israel's part.)

The other is that other members of the Security Council were blindsided by the US decision. For so long, they had assumed a US veto on anti-Israel resolutions, so they had an easy decision to make: vote "yes" and keep their friends in the Arab world happy, while knowing deep down that the obsession that the UN has with Israel is absurd and counterproductive to its mission and one day they could become the victims of a witch hunt, too.

But when the US abstains, suddenly the other members of the Security Council - and specifically its permanent members - have a new responsibility.

They need to consider doing the right thing themselves instead of relying on the US to take the lead. Suddenly, their importance has increased as well as their responsibility.

If you take May's statement at face value, then the UK might have voted "no" had they known the US intended to abstain. The entire calculus of the Security Council just changed from relying on a US veto to learning that there are actual consequences to one-sided resolutions that pass.

The US just created another leadership vacuum.  By childishly trying to teach Israel a lesson, President Obama has abdicated the US role as the de facto leader in helping the moribund peace process. John Kerry just made sure that US influence on Israel has lessened.

What national leader doesn't want to fill a leadership vacuum?

Suddenly, France and Russia and the UK want to get more involved in the supposed peace process.

It is not entirely clear what this will mean down the line, especially with the new administration coming in. But the playbook has been changed and President Obama has left behind another legacy of weakening the US on the world stage.





We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, December 29, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
Interesting (I think) original techno song.






We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
From Ian:

Prominent US National Security Journalist Explains Apology for Past Defense of Obama's Israel Record
The anti-settlement UN Security Council resolution the Obama administration allowed to be approved last week will “haunt Israel for years to come,” a prominent US national security reporter told The Algemeiner on Wednesday.
Eli Lake — a Bloomberg View columnist — spoke with The Algemeiner three days after he posted — in the wake of the Security Council vote — a tweet apologizing to pro-Israel friends for his past defense of outgoing President Barack Obama’s record when it comes to the Jewish state.
“First of all, I want to make it really clear that I’m not posing as a great supporter of Obama’s foreign policy,” Lake explained to The Algemeiner. “I’m not even a partial Obama Kool-Aid drinker. But I’ve also written a lot about US-Israel military cooperation, particularly the military subsidy to Israel that the Obama administration has increased. This was really a tweet about conversations I’ve had with friends in which I noted that Obama had largely protected Israel at the UN — until last week — and I’ve described his approach as kind of tough love.”
However, Obama’s decision to abstain from last Friday’s Security Council vote was “unbelievable,” Lake said.
Netanyahu Targets Obama's Anti-Semitism With One Photo
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had earlier in the day expressed his gratitude to president-elect Donald Trump for his support of Israel during the crisis arising from the Obama Administration’s approval of the vicious anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution last Friday, targeted President Obama with one photo on Netanyahu’s Facebook page:
Netanyahu is exactly right. The UN Security Council resolution effectively declared Israel’s presence in the Old City of Jerusalem to be illegal, thus denying the Biblical claim to the Temple Mount, the holiest place in Jerusalem. The Temple Mount was the site of the biblical Temples, the first of which was built by King Solomon almost 1,000 years before Christ, as stated in the Bible in 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. Jews trace their claim to King David, Solomon’s father, 3,000 years ago.
On the second night of Hanukkah, the holiday that celebrates the ancient Maccabean revolt against an oppressive regime seeking to target the Jews, Netanyahu fired back at the UN, “According to the U.N. resolution, the Maccabees did not liberate Jerusalem, they occupied Palestinian territory. According to the U.N. resolution, the villages that they started out from in the Modi’in area [north-west of Jerusalem], those villages and that area were occupied Palestinian territory. Of course the Palestinians arrived much later. We were here much earlier.”

Melanie Phillips: An open letter to Theresa May
Dear Prime Minister,
It was sickening to see that your government last week voted for the declaration of diplomatic war against Israel embodied in resolution 2334 passed by the UN Security Council.
Bad enough that Britain didn’t use its position as a permanent SC member to vote against this vicious resolution and thereby stop it in its tracks. Worse, far worse was that your government voted for it. In doing so, Britain signed up to propositions that repudiate law, justice and truth.
Now reports have surfaced that, yet more appallingly, Britain was actually instrumental in getting 2334 passed by helping draft the resolution and then stiffening New Zealand’s resolve in proposing it.
I don’t know whether that is correct. I suspect it may well be. I think, nevertheless, that you spoke from the heart the other week when you told the Conservative Friends of Israel of your admiration for Israel as a “remarkable country” and a “beacon of tolerance” and your warm feelings towards the Jewish people.
I also think, however, that you know little about the history of the Jews in the Middle East, the part played in that history by previous British governments or the infernal strategic aims of the people known as the “Palestinians”. I believe, therefore, you might not fully grasp the implications of supporting UNSC resolution 2334.
So let me spell out exactly what your government has done by voting in this way. (h/t Yenta Press)

 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I am writing on Wednesday, after the passage of UNSC resolution 2334 and John Kerry’s speech laying out his parameters for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And after that, there will or will not be another Security Council resolution, in which the so-called “international community” will continue on its path to making Israel indefensible and ultimately seeing her disappear.

Today I’m going to take a longer view and ask a more fundamental question than “how are they going to try to stick it to us tomorrow?” Today I want to know “what’s in it for them in sticking it to us?” 

This is interesting, because the obvious answer seems to be “nothing.” Look at this objectively: Israel is a tiny country which actually contributes a lot to civilization in science, technology, medicine and more. The Palestinians (PLO and Hamas varieties) basically have one interest, and that is destroying Israel and taking over their tiny piece of land. Their major contribution to civilization seems to be the popularization of airline hijacking and suicide bombing. Israel tried several times to give away large chunks of its country – which it is fully entitled to keep – in order to end the conflict, but the Palestinians have refused every time. Lucky for us.

Most of the nations, if asked, would say that it has to do with the human rights of the Palestinians. This is interesting too, because the Palestinians seem to think they have a right to kill anyone Jewish they come across. Israel argues persuasively that it really has to take security measures that affect the Palestinians, because otherwise they would exercise their “right” to murder us. How do we know? Experience: the withdrawal from Gaza and the various prisoner releases. Give them  a chance, and they try to kill us. It happens every time.

It’s even more interesting that for all the people deprived of their human rights around the world – often much more severely than the Palestinians, who have more rights than Arabs living in Arab countries – the international community expends far more money and energy on the Palestinians than on anyone else.

So let’s try to figure this out. Who would benefit if the Palestinians got their wish and we disappeared? Possibly only the Palestinians themselves and Iran, which wants to become the regional hegemon and sees us as an obstacle. But how does that explain the anti-Israel activity in almost all the European countries, especially the most “progressive” ones like the Scandinavian countries, France, Germany, Britain and others? How does it explain that other pole of the Axis of anti-Israelness, the White House? And how does it explain the particular passion with which they have taken sides?

Interests are insufficient to explain this. We need to look at psychology.

The Palestinians got their start from the Soviet KGB as a weapon against American influence in the Middle East. The Soviet psychological warfare experts melded third-world anti-imperialism with traditional Jew-hatred to create the meme of an oppressed “Palestinian people” whose human rights were being denied them by vicious European Jewish colonists. This powerful but totally false story, convincingly told, found its way into leftist dogma. It was eagerly lapped up by the affluenza-sufferers of the New Left, many of them Jewish, who were looking for a connection to the “Wretched of the Earth,” in the words of Frantz Fanon.

People are fond of saying that they are critical of Israeli policy but they don’t hate Jews. But passionate anti-Zionism is never pure. A natural question to ask is, “if Israel is so evil, what makes it so?” And the obvious answer is “because the Jews are evil.” Anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred go together. One gives rise to the other. The Palestinians’ made-up history only works if you believe Israeli Jews capable of deliberate ethnic cleansing and murder; if you believe that they are like Nazis. And if Jews are like Nazis, then their state is a Nazi state.

When the New Lefties of 1960s Europe grew up, many of them became Social Democrats. While they may have grown away from anarchism and created its opposite in the European Union, they kept their ideas about Israel and the Palestinians. It was a satisfying relief for Europeans, embarrassed by their fathers’ crimes during the Holocaust, to “realize” that the Jews themselves were actually Nazis. 

In America, the New Left virtually conquered academia, where terrorists like Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn became respected members of the academic community. Big grants to universities from Saudi Arabia and other oil states ensured that there would be “Middle East Studies” departments to promote the correct line on Israel. 

The Left in America was very fertile ground for Jew hatred. It was politically incorrect to say that you hated Jews, but you could say anything you wanted about Israel. And what about the “Israel Lobby?” And little by little, like in the Occupy movement, it became OK to suggest that maybe Jews had too much influence in the media, Hollywood and banking. 

The black community in America was infected with anti-Jewish attitudes as well, probably originally traceable to the Nation of Islam, later amplified by conflicts with Jewish landlords, teachers and shop-owners, and fertilized by the influence of the radical Left on the Black Power movement. 

Barack Obama’s ideas about Israel and the Palestinians probably developed from multiple sources: his early Muslim background; the influence of friends like Ayres and Dohrn, anti-Israel blogger Ali Abunimah, Columbia professor and PLO operative Rashid Khalidi, and academics like Edward Said; and the anti-Jewish climate in the black community. Obama chose advisors that shared his point of view, like Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes and Rob Malley.

The Muslim world quite naturally cleaved to the side of the Palestinians, because, after all, most Palestinians are Muslims. But there was also a sinister cross-pollination from ancient European Jew-hatred that was introduced by Hitler’s associate Haj Amin al-Husseini, as well as the numerous Nazi war criminals that found asylum in places like Egypt and Syria after the war. Egypt has virtually no Jews left, and yet a common insult there is to call someone a Jew. When Mubarak was deposed, cartoons and posters showed him with a star of David on his forehead. 

It is now possible to understand the automatic majority votes against Israel in the UN, or, more to the point, the obsessive focus of the UN on Israel, and why real atrocities that occur elsewhere in the world are comparatively barely noticed. We can see why the terrorism committed on a regular basis by Palestinians against Jews for at least a hundred years receives only lip service, while Jewish building in Jerusalem makes Obama “furious.” We can understand why the outcome of the vote for Security Council resolution 2334 was greeted with “sustained applause.” We can see why the European nations and the EU spend millions of Euros every year supporting subversive anti-state NGOs in Israel, and why the human rights of Palestinians are more important to them than those of anyone else. And we can see why Barack Obama has consistently worked against Israel over his entire term, winding up with a still-unfolding diplomatic strike.

Even though national interest is cited – Kerry even argued in his speech that American interests were served by destabilizing Israel! – the real motivation for these policies is deep, irrational, and unfortunately, very familiar.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: Joining the Jackals: An Open Letter to Amb. Samantha Power | The Case Against U.N. Resolution 2334
Dear Ambassador Power,
I write in response to your abstention on Friday which allowed a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel, and in response to the substantial explanation of vote that you delivered. With even further U.N. measures still possible before President Obama leaves office on January 20th, I urge you and the Administration—where you play an influential role as a member of the President’s Cabinet, and as one of President Obama’s most trusted advisors—to reconsider your approach.
Your speech on Friday had much to applaud. As you have vigorously done for three years, your remarks exposed in compelling detail the U.N. double standard applied to the Jewish state, which, you rightly said, “not only hurts Israel, it undermines the legitimacy of the United Nations itself.”
As you noted last year on the 40th anniversary of the infamous Zionism is Racism resolution, at the U.N. “rarely a day goes by without some effort to delegitimize Israel.” On that occasion, you called for everyone to “relentlessly fight back” against this “ignorance and hatred.”
Your vote on Friday, however, makes a dramatic break with all of this. While it is perfectly legitimate to disagree with Israel about settlements, allowing Resolution 2334 to pass was morally wrong and strategically damaging. As set forth below, we believe the U.S. decision to acquiesce in the adoption of this lopsided resolution reverses decades of past practice, sets back the cause of peace, and harms the interests of Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans.

PodCast: Israel Uncensored: Caroline Glick: UNSC Resolution is a Betrayal
On today’s Israel Uncensored, Josh Hasten interviews Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post Senior Contributing Editor, columnist, and renowned author to get her take on the anti-Israel UN Security Council resolution passed this week. Glick says that the resolution gives a green light to terrorism, lends support to the anti-Israel BDS movement and is a betrayal not only to Israel, but to the American people who are also seen as legitimate targets by the worldwide Jihad. Glick says that despite the resolution there is a silver lining with a new US Administration on the way. She concludes that this Hanukkah we should learn from our Maccabee ancestors that despite the adversity, in the end the People of Israel will prevail.

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory

Check out their Facebook page.



siege-of-jerusalem
Jerusalem, December 28 - The Roman general commanding the forces surrounding the Jewish capital sent messengers today to the leaders of the besieged stronghold urging them to comply with Security Council Resolution 2339, which declared that a Jewish sovereign presence beyond the 1949 lines is illegal.

Titus Flavius, who took over the siege when his father Vespasian received word he had been appointed Emperor of Rome, cited the relevant decision of the United Nations, noting the fact that in deeming Jewish settlement or construction beyond the armistice lines illegal under international law, the Council automatically rendered the entire Jewish stronghold currently under siege an illegal entity that must be dismantled. That could happen, warned Titus, by peaceful means if the defenders of the city simply gave up the fight and agreed to be subjugated and sent elsewhere, or it could happen by force if necessary, and the Roman Legions laying the siege were prepared to subdue Jerusalem by those means.

"Be advised that in accordance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2339, adopted December 23, 2016, this Jewish settlement of Jerusalem constitutes a violation of international law, in its consisting of Jewish settlement beyond the retroactively recognized boundaries that obtained prior to June, 1967," read the general's message, conveyed by courier. "Any attempt to thwart our action, sanctioned under the same international law, will be met with uncompromising force. Surrender, Jews, or face the wrath of the international community."

Resolution 2339 was adopted by a 14-0 vote in the Council, with the United States pointedly abstaining and declining to veto the measure. In so doing, the Obama administration departed from decades of American presidential policy that shielded the Jewish State from overt bias in the UN and its various organs. Observers predicted the chilling effect the American and international move would have on the Jewish effort to maintain control over their ancient capital and homeland in general.

Titus and his troops have been battling a Jewish insurgency against Roman rule that erupted in the year 66. Only once Vespasian took command and brought in overwhelming numbers of Roman soldiers was the tide turned, and now the Jewish State remains in control only of its capital Jerusalem and several isolated outposts. "We gave Jewish legitimacy a good number of generations, but it doesn't seem to be a recipe for peace," explained Flavius Josephus, a spokesman for Titus. "It might be time to deport these rebels by the hundreds of thousands and rename the place to help remove the connection between the Jews and Judea. I humbly suggest something ironic, such as 'Palestina,' a word that itself means 'invaders.' The joke will be on whoever uses it to establish a claim of indigenous status."




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, December 29, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon

Munir Aljagub, Fatah's media director who is quoted often as a Fatah spokesman, poses with one of his favorite cartoons.

It shows Hamas and Fatah shaking hands to become a weapon to shoot Israel together with.

So it indeed shows how much Fatah wants peace - with Hamas. And for only one purpose.

John Kerry will quote members of Israel's coalition government, who are skeptical about peace prospects, to prove that Israel is not interested in peace. But he will never, ever mention how leaders of Abbas' own movement consistently and explicitly support war.

Because it doesn't fit the narrative.





We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Thursday, December 29, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon


The original headline of this New York Times article about Kerry's speech read:

Expiration Date for Israeli-Palestinian 2-State Solution May Be Jan. 20

Soon after, they changed the headline to:

Two-State Plan Nears the End Of Its Shelf Life

This was the headline in today's front page, but online it changed again to "In John Kerry’s Mideast Speech, a Clash of Policies and Personalities."

At least one thing is accurate about the NYT coverage: the speech was directed at Israel, and gave Palestinians a pass, outside of the obligatory "we tell Palestinians that they really should stop incitement and terror. Pretty please" disclaimer to make the position of the outgoing US administration appear even-handed.

As I documented in my previous post, it is Israel and only Israel that has made any concessions for peace since the Oslo process began. The Palestinian leadership has not only consistently bragged about its intransigence, it has hardened it, to the point that it even threatens its own citizens who visit Jewish-owned stores and it refuses to even speak to Israeli negotiators. EU-funded programs to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians have essentially all failed because of official PA policy against "normalization"; their funds have been redirected into internal Israeli peace programs between Jews and Israeli Arabs.

Now in a last gasp effort, Obama and Kerry are perversely claiming that it is Israel that is imperiling the two state solution, not the Palestinians. The New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media barely report about the things I just mentioned, solidifying the myth of Israeli culpability and Netanyahu's secret desire for annexing the territories.

What the White House and the media don't understand is that they are the ones who have emboldened Palestinian intransigence and the failure of negotiations, not Israel.

By consistently giving Palestinian leadership a pass - by ignoring the stream of antisemitism and support of terror that the current generation of Palestinian young adults have been barraged with since they were born in the 23 years after Oslo, ignoring that Mahmoud Abbas' party praises terrorists literally every day on Facebook, by placing the blame for the failure of successively generous (and successively foolhardy) Israeli peace plans onto Israel, the media and the world governments have given Palestinians a pass for their outrageous behavior.

And the Palestinian leadership is more than happy to pocket their political gains that resulted from their refusal to compromise.

Very few Israelis want to rule over Palestinians. But they don't want to imperil their security for a piece of paper, either. 

At this point, no one knows that a Trump administration will do. But it is very possible, if they play their cards right, that they could do more for peace than Obama and Kerry could do in a lifetime. 

It is this coddling of Palestinians by the international community and the media that have caused Abbas and Erekat to harden their positions while even the Likud party has softened its own. When faced with a United States that tells them that this gravy train is over and that if they want a state they need to act like it, it might prod them into action. 

Or it will reveal that their true desire isn't really to have a state of their own but to destroy the Jewish state. President Trump will not be afraid to say that once he is convinced of it, and all Palestinian actions to this point have pointed in that direction.

A Trump administration that ends this coddling of a group of terror supporters rebranded as peacemakers will certainly do more for real peace than anything - and I mean anything - that Obama or Kerry has done.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

  • Wednesday, December 28, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon


John Kerry's speech on Wednesday gave Palestinians two more gifts from the US today - rewards for their adamant refusal to compromise.

Kerry said that Israel must do more concrete moves for peace - stopping building, giving more power to the PA - in order to build confidence towards a two state solution. There were no such concrete demands on the Palestinian side, only wishy washy requests to stop incitement and terror - with no consequences if they refuse.

As has been pointed out before, Mahmoud Abbas has bragged on multiple occasions that he has not changed the Palestinian position one bit since 1988.

Since then, the Israeli side has given the Palestinians autonomy, land, and allowed them to arm themselves. It has released scores of murderers and terrorists from prison.

The Palestinians have responded with suicide bombings, stabbings, shootings, rocket fire, more incitement and more overt support of terrorists. Israel has made all the concessions. (Unless you count the Palestinian Authority stopping terror attacks to be a "concession," which mean you consider Palestinians to be murderers by nature and want to reward them for acting like normal humans.)

And the US has rewarded the intransigent side.

In 2001, the US officially said that the Palestinians should have a state - a wonderful reward for the outbreak of the second intifada.

In 2011, President Obama for the first time said that any peace plan must adhere to the 1967 lines with equal land swaps - a completely new US position, giving Palestinians far more than the Clinton parameters envisioned, and also a reward for Palestinian refusal to counter earlier Israeli offers for peace.

And today, John Kerry gave two major new concessions to the Palestinians as a reward for their refusal to even talk to Israel for years.

One was to say that Jerusalem must be the capital of two states. His specific words were "Jerusalem as the internationally recognized capital of the two states."

This was never officially stated by the US before.

The other major change was that the US changed its characterizations of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria from being "illegitimate" to now reverting to language from the Carter era that they are "inconsistent with international law." The very first veto at the UN Security Council by the Obama administration in 2011 was for a resolution that called the settlements illegal, now Kerry says that this is official US policy.

That is two major changes in Obama's policy towards Israel today, and (at least) three during his administration, all of them in favor of Palestinians who have not even deigned to negotiate with Israel after months of pleading by the US.

When Israel gives concessions for peace, they are not rewarded with goodwill as Kerry pretends is a prerequisite for peace. They are instead punished, while Palestinians reap more and more rewards for doing nothing at all for peace, in fact for creating an environment where their people will support terror for generations to come.

The lesson is clear. Israel must stop being nice, because the nice guys are the ones who are treated by the world as if they have no rights to begin with.

The policy of bending over to please the West has resulted in the West bending over to reward the terrorists.

And on Wednesday, John Kerry proved it.




We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
  • Wednesday, December 28, 2016
  • Elder of Ziyon
Another acapella group, but a new twist on some classics.






We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
From Ian:

Kerry: Two-state solution ‘only path to peace,’ but we won’t impose deal
US secretary of state John Kerry on Wednesday laid out his “comprehensive vision” for the future of Middle East peacemaking, saying that a two-state solution was the “only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state,” but promising that the US would not seek further UN action on the conflict, days after President Barack Obama infuriated Israel’s for the decision not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement activity.
In a speech that lasted well over an hour, Kerry described settlements as an important obstacle to achieving an agreement between the sides and that Israeli actions in the West Bank were putting the two-state solution, which he said was the sole path to peace, “in serious jeopardy.”
Kerry argued that settlement construction in the West Bank was being “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible” and said the “the status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation.”
With less than a month as secretary of state, Kerry sought to champion the two-state outcome he worked to achieve throughout the last four years, saying it was the only path forward. Yet his address comes in the backdrop of incoming president Donald Trump signaling he may not be committed to the two-state framework.
“The two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Kerry said. “It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors.”
“It is the only way to ensure a future of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people and it is an important way of advancing United States interests in the region,” he added of the two-solution, which he said was “now in serious jeopardy.”
PM, ministers lay into Kerry’s ‘obsessive, skewed’ speech on conflict
Israel’s leadership was quick to deride US Secretary of State John Kerry’s vision for a solution to the Middle East conflict Wednesday, shortly after the American diplomat once again championed the two-state solution and staunchly defended the Obama administration’s decision to allow the UN Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal.
Responding to the speech, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement to the media that, “Like the Security Council resolution that Secretary Kerry advanced at the UN, his speech tonight was skewed against Israel.
“For over an hour, Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the root of the conflict — Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, said he had no intention of allowing Palestinians to set up a “terror state” alongside Israel.
“Kerry quoted me three times anonymously [in his speech] to show that we are opposed to a Palestinian state,” Bennett wrote in Hebrew on Twitter. “It’s true. If it’s up to me, we will not establish another terror state in the heart of the land [of Israel].”
PMW: Support PMW: Look what we accomplished this year!
"Palestinian Media Watch showed how the PA sought to deceive international donors..."
[MP Joan Ryan, Labour Party in UK Parliament, June 13, 2016]
"Anyone in this parliament who has been to the many sessions of Palestinian Media Watch that have taken place here over the last 15 years has seen some of the appalling material..."
[MP Michael Danby, Labour in Australian Parliament, Nov. 22, 2016]
"Antisemitic statements and incitement to violence by Palestinian leaders are documented by Palestinian Media Watch... Aid to Palestine should therefore be conditioned."
[MP Mikael Oscarsson, in Swedish Parliament, Jan. 19, 2016]
"The Norwegian Foreign Ministry confirms Palestinian Media Watch's claim." [TV news report, NRK TV (Norway), April 24, 2016]
"Itamar Marcus [PMW director]... has documented the flow of money to the [terrorist] prisoners... " German MP Volker Beck: "Supporting people who have committed terrorist acts against Israel or Israeli citizens cannot be funded under any circumstances by the PA, when Germany supports them financially." [TV news report, Channel 1 (Germany), Aug. 25, 2016]
"The donor community is helping the PA basically pay people to slay other people and then a stipend is given..."
[Congressman Ed Royce referring to PMW report
in House Foreign Affairs Committee, April 13, 2016]

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

Follow by Email

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

subscribe via email

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Categories

#PayForSlay Abbas liar Academic fraud administrivia al-Qaeda algeria Alice Walker American Jews AmericanZionism Amnesty analysis anti-semitism anti-Zionism antisemitism apartheid Arab antisemitism arab refugees Arafat archaeology Ari Fuld art Ashrawi ASHREI B'tselem bahrain Balfour bbc BDS BDSFail Bedouin Beitunia beoz Bernie Sanders Biden history Birthright book review Brant Rosen breaking the silence Campus antisemitism Cardozo cartoon of the day Chakindas Chanukah Christians circumcision Clark Kent coexistence Community Standards conspiracy theories COVID-19 Cyprus Daled Amos Daphne Anson David Applebaum Davis report DCI-P Divest This double standards Egypt Elder gets results ElderToons Electronic Intifada Embassy EoZ Trump symposium eoz-symposium EoZNews eoztv Erekat Erekat lung transplant EU Euro-Mid Observer European antisemitism Facebook Facebook jail Fake Civilians 2014 Fake Civilians 2019 Farrakhan Fatah featured Features fisking flotilla Forest Rain Forward free gaza freedom of press palestinian style future martyr Gary Spedding gaza Gaza Platform George Galloway George Soros German Jewry Ghassan Daghlas gideon levy gilad shalit gisha Goldstone Report Good news Grapel Guardian guest post gunness Haaretz Hadassah hamas Hamas war crimes Hananya Naftali hasbara Hasby 2014 Hasby 2016 Hasby 2018 hate speech Hebron helen thomas hezbollah history Hizballah Holocaust Holocaust denial honor killing HRW Human Rights Humanitarian crisis humor huor Hypocrisy ICRC IDF IfNotNow Ilan Pappe Ilhan Omar impossible peace incitement indigenous Indonesia international law interview intransigence iran Iraq Islamic Judeophobia Islamism Israel Loves America Israeli culture Israeli high-tech J Street jabalya James Zogby jeremy bowen Jerusalem jewish fiction Jewish Voice for Peace jihad jimmy carter Joe Biden John Kerry jokes jonathan cook Jordan Joseph Massad Juan Cole Judaism Judea-Samaria Judean Rose Judith Butler Kairos Karl Vick Keith Ellison ken roth khalid amayreh Khaybar Know How to Answer Lebanon leftists Linda Sarsour Linkdump lumish mahmoud zahar Mairav Zonszein Malaysia Marc Lamont Hill Marjorie Taylor Greene max blumenthal Mazen Adi McGraw-Hill media bias Methodist Michael Lynk Michael Ross Miftah Missionaries moderate Islam Mohammed Assaf Mondoweiss moonbats Morocco Mudar Zahran music Muslim Brotherhood Naftali Bennett Nakba Nan Greer Nation of Islam Natural gas Nazi Netanyahu News nftp NGO Nick Cannon NIF Noah Phillips norpac NSU Matrix NYT Occupation offbeat olive oil Omar Barghouti Only in Israel Opinion Opinon oxfam PA corruption PalArab lies Palestine Papers pallywood pchr PCUSA Peace Now Peter Beinart Petra MB philosophy poetry Poland poll Poster Preoccupied Prisoners propaganda Proud to be Zionist Puar Purim purimshpiel Putin Qaradawi Qassam calendar Quora Rafah Ray Hanania real liberals RealJerusalemStreets reference Reuters Richard Falk Richard Landes Richard Silverstein Right of return Rivkah Lambert Adler Robert Werdine rogel alpher roger cohen roger waters Rutgers Saeb Erekat Sarah Schulman Saudi Arabia saudi vice self-death self-death palestinians Seth Rogen settlements sex crimes SFSU shechita sheikh tamimi Shelly Yachimovich Shujaiyeh Simchat Torah Simona Sharoni SodaStream South Africa Sovereignty Speech stamps Superman Syria Tarabin Temple Mount Terrorism This is Zionism Thomas Friedman TOI Tomer Ilan Trump Trump Lame Duck Test Tunisia Turkey UAE Accord UCI UK UN UNDP unesco unhrc UNICEF United Arab Emirates Unity unrwa UNRWA hate unrwa reports UNRWA-USA unwra Varda Vic Rosenthal Washington wikileaks work accident X-washing Y. Ben-David Yemen YMikarov zahran Ziesel zionist attack zoo Zionophobia Ziophobia Zvi

Blog Archive