The only indigenous Palestinian Arab families, it seems, are descended from Jews

At JCPA, Pinhas Inbari has a fascinating study of the origins of Palestinians.

One of his points is summarized:

Not a single Palestinian tribe identifies its roots in Canaan; instead, they all see themselves as proud Arabs descended from the most notable Arab tribes of the Hejaz, today’s Iraq, or Yemen. Even the Kanaan family of Nablus locates its origins in Syria. Some Palestinian clans are Kurdish or Egyptian in origin, and in Mount Hebron, there are traditions of Jewish origins.

He has interesting details about the Jewish origins of some of the Palestinian Arab families:

For Muslim families, a Christian origin could indicate a Jewish origin, though not necessarily. The Christian families of Ramallah are an example. According to their tradition, the Christians of Ramallah are descended from the Christian Bedouin tribe of southern Jordan. (Yes, there were Christian Bedouins in the past.) They were the Haddadin tribe of the Karak area, 140 kilometers south of Amman, who were forced to leave 250 years ago by pressure from the Muslim tribes who sought to marry their daughters.32
Originally, the Haddadin tribe was Yemenite, and it was forced to leave pre-Muslim Yemen at the time of the Jewish king, Dhu Nuwas (455-510 CE), to avoid converting to Judaism and to maintain their Christianity.33  Today, the Haddadin is one of Jordan’s important tribes, and its members hold senior positions in the Hashemite government; an example is Munzer Haddadin, who headed the Jordanian delegation to the talks on water with Israel.
The Jewish origin of the fellahin [villagers, laborer] is a fascinating subject. The Israeli computer scientist Zvi Misinay has sponsored genetic studies that have demonstrated a “primary” genetic link between the Palestinian fellahin and the Jews.34  Arab researchers have rejected this thesis, ascribing it to the desire to Judaize the Palestinians.35
Nonetheless, in conversations, many Palestinians confirm ancient traditions of Jewish origins that are common in their families. For example, a female clerk in the office of Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) once told me that her origins lay in the two biblical towns of Tzora and Eshtaol mentioned in the Samson story (Judges 13). Interestingly, the pairing of Tzora and Eshtaol is also preserved in spoken Arabic. The Palestinian Encyclopedia, published by the Palestinian Authority, describes “Sar’a” as a village that was founded in Canaanite days.36   The Israeli nonprofit organization Zochrot, which preserves the memory of the Palestinian villages that were destroyed during the War of Independence, makes use of the Palestinian descriptions but adds that the original name of this village was Sor’a and that it was known by this name at least until the 16th century.37
Crypto-Jews
A source in Mount Hebron told me once that the Mount Hebron villagers call the residents of Hebron “the Jews.” Although the families of Hebron do not regard themselves as having Jewish ancestry, in the Mount Hebron villages there are traditions with Jewish origins. The most notable examples are the village of Yatta – the Biblical Juttah – and particularly among the Makhamra family.
Israel’s second president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, was a noted historian who researched the village of Yatta. In 1928 he described the lighting of Hanukah candles and observance of Jewish customs.38
The tradition that the Makhamra clan has Jewish ancestry is common to this family, noted Ben Zvi. Strikingly, one finds on a Palestinian Facebook page,39 called “All of us are for Palestine,” a passage reposted from a different Facebook page called “Yatta is everyone’s”:
It is said that the Makhamra family is of Jewish origin, and this was proved in the United Nations, and in 1947 Yatta was registered as a Jewish town, and it is said that all the residents of Yatta are of Jewish origin, and that the Samu, the Maharik family, the Carmel, Susya, Bani Naim, the Ta’amar, and the Rashaida and Azazmah tribes [in Jordan] are also Jews.40
 The Middle East scholar Moshe Elad said on Israel’s Arabic television that two members of the Makhamra family had converted to Judaism and were now Israeli citizens living in Israel and that in the village customs of lighting Shabbat and Chanukah candles had been preserved.41
Unfortunately, the two terrorists who perpetrated the Islamic State-inspired attack at Tel Aviv’s Sarona market on June 8, 2016, were members of the Makhamra family.42 

Essentially, the only Muslim families who can claim to have been in Palestine 2000 years ago were converts from Judaism or Christianity. By far most of them come from other areas of the Middle East or Europe.

I have looked at this topic a number of times over the years, and here is my latest list of  over 130 Palestinian families and their origins (although I've seen some contradictory origins listed for some families):

Abbas	Iraq
Abdil-Masih  (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Abid	Sudan
Abu Aita (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Abu Ghosh	Europe/11th century
Abu Sitta	Egypt
Abu-Kishk	Egypt
Adwan	Arabia
Afghani	Afghanistan
Ajami	Iran
Al Hafi	Iraq
Alami	Morocco
Alami	Morocco
Alawi	Syria
Al-Hayik (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Arafat	Syria
Araj	Morocco
Aramsha	Egypt
Arashi	Egypt
Ashrawi	Yemen
Awwad	Egypt
Azd, Azad	Yemen
Badra	Egypt
Baghdadi	Iraq
Banna	Egypt
Bannoura	Egypt
Bardawil	Egypt
Barghouti	Yemen (may be Jewish)
Bushnak	Bosnia
Chehayber	Turkey
Dajani	Arabia via Spain
Darjani	Arabia
Djazair	Algeria
Doghmush	Turkey
Erekat	Jordan
Fakiki	Morocco
Faranji	France
Faruqi	Iraq
Fayumi	Egypt
Filali	Morocco
Gharub	Egypt
Ghassan	Lebanon
Haddadin	Yemen
Halabi	Syria
Hamis	Bahrain
Hammouda	Transjordan
Hannouneh (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Hashlamun	Kurdistan
Hijazi	Arabia
Hindi	India
Hourani	Syria
Husseini	Arabia
Ibrahim (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Iraki	Iraq
Issa	Arrived in 1820s to Haifa, not sure from where
Jabari	Iraq
Jazir	Algiers
Kafisha	Kurdistan
Kanaan	Syria
Khair	Egypt
Khairi	Morocco
Khalil	Arabia
Khamadan	Yemen
Khamati	Syria
Khamis	Bahrain
Khazen	Lebanon
Khoury (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Kukali	Syria
Kurdi	Kurdistan
Lubnani	Lebanon
Mahdi	Morocco
Makhamra	Jewish
Marashda	Egypt
Masa'ad	Egypt
Masarwa	Egypt
Maslouhi	Morocco
Masri	Egypt
Matar	Kuwait
Mattar	Yemen
Metzarwah	Egypt
Mughrabi, Moghrabi	Morocco
Murad	Albania/Yemen
Muwaqat	Morocco
Muzaffar	Morocco
Nablusi	Named after Nablus - but that was named in the 7th century
Nammari	Spain
Nashashibi	Kurdish/Turkoman/Syria
Nusseibeh	Arrived 7th Century
Omaya	Arabia
Othman	Turkey
Qudwa	Syria
Qurashi	Arabia
Qutob	Morocco
Ridwan	Ottoman
Rishmawi (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Sa'ad	Egypt
Salibas	Greece
Samahadna	Sudan (maybe)
Saud / Saudi	Arabia
Shaalan	Egypt
Shakirat	Egypt
Shami	Syria
Shamis	Syria
Shashani	Chechnya
Shawish	Arabia
Sidawi	Lebanon
Sous (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Sultan	Turkey
Surani	Lebanon
Taamari	Arabia
Tachriti	Iraq
Tamimi	Yemen/Egypt/Arabia
Tarabin	Mecca oe Egypt
Tarabulsi	Lebanon
Tartir	Egypt
Tawil	Egypt
Tayib	Morocco
Tijani	Morocco
Tikriti	Iraq
Touqan	Northern Arabia or Syria
Turki	Turkey
Ubayyidi	Sudan
Uthman	Turkey
Yacoub (Beit Sahour)	Turkey
Yamani	Yemen
Zabidat	Egypt
Zaghab	Morocco
Zarqawi	Jordan
Zeitawi	Morocco
Zoabi	Iraq
Zubeidi	Iraq

The only real indigenous Palestinians who can claim to have lived in Palestine since before the Roman conquest are those who are descended from Jews.

Which means that today's Jews are really the only indigenous people left from the area that was later known as Palestine.

 Update: Qasem - Arabia.

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Rome suspends naming a park after Yasir Arafat

The Mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi,  reversed the city's decision to name one of the city's parks after arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat.

The original plan was for a street to also be named after the late chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Elio Toaff, for "balance." Toaff died in 2015.

The Jewish community of Rome protested bitterly against the decision.  The chair of the Jewish Community of Rome, Ruth Dureghello, wrote an open letter to the mayor, saying "We remember Arafat,  for those who obviously do not know the story, as the moral force behind the anti-Semitic attack on the Synagogue of October 9, 1982, in which Stefano Gaj Taché was killed, a Jewish, Roman and Italian child. Choosing to dedicate to Arafat a park is unacceptable...The city of Rome must choose: to remember the terrorists or their victims. Both things are not possible."

The letter also called Arafat the "forerunner, if not the creator, of modern terrorism."

Here is what happened in 1982:

The attack took place at the Great Synagogue of Rome in the historic district of Rome on Saturday morning, at 11:55 a.m., at the conclusion of Sabbath services. As the families of the local Jewish community began leaving the synagogue with their children from the back entrance to the synagogue, five elegantly dressed  armed Palestinian attackers walked calmly  up to the back entrance of the synagogue and threw at least three hand grenades  at the crowd, and afterwards sprayed the crowd with sub-machine gun fire. Eyewitnesses at the scene stated that the hand grenades bounced off the steps and exploded in the street
A 2-year-old toddler, Stefano Gaj Taché, was killed in the attack after being hit by shrapnel. In addition, 37 civilians were injured, among them Stefano's brother, 4-year-old Gadiel Taché, who was shot in the head and chest. 

Reaction in the Italian press to the initial decision was mixed. There were a number of articles that agreed with the Jewish community that it was ill-advised. An op-ed in Il Fatto Quotidiano ridiculed the "balance" of honoring the terrorist and the Chief Rabbi, saying that the political correctness that prompted the decision was akin to equating the Torah with a Kalashnikov. 

Strade Online remembers not only the Great synagogue attack but also the 1973 attack by Palestinians at Fiumicino International Airport that killed dozens and the 1985 attack at the same airport that killed 16.

But Comune-Info.net instead complained about how Rome gives "veto power" to the Jews, and it said that the Jewish community letter calling Arafat the architect of modern terrorism is an example of brilliant fake history.  It says "We do not want to believe that it is for low reasons of interest dictated by the economic and media power of Zionism that we accept the pro-Israel diktat, no, we just think that the terror of being unjustifiably labeled anti-Semitic has now assumed the power of an invisible but very sharp sword ready to decapitate anyone who dares to criticize Israel."

Because murdering hundreds of people is valid criticism of Israel.

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08/14 Links Pt2: Yad Vashem warns of Nazi ideology on display in Virginia; Anti-Semitic signs at Switzerland hotel

From Ian:

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Former Muslim Sandra Solomon fearlessly defends Israel

Sandra Solomon, an Arab born in Ramallah who converted to Christianity more than ten years ago and became a supporter of Israel, explains in an interview to the Kan broadcasting network her motivations and goals in a single-woman crusade for sanity that constantly places her in danger.
Niece of one of the Fatah movement's founders, Sahar Habash, a close confidant of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat, Solomon frequently repeats her unequivocal disapproval of attacks carried out by Muslims against Israelis, citing education as the cause of the violence.
She condemned the recent Neve Tzuf attack in which a Muslim broke into a home and killed three members of the Salomon family: “The Palestinian terrorist who murdered a family on Friday evening in Halamish - where did he get the idea to enter a home and kill the people who were in there?” asked Solomon. “The young Palestinians who carry out attacks are already murdered from a psychological point of view by the education that is given to them.”
“As a child, I was brought up to hate Israel,” she related. “The most important thing to us was the liberation of the Al-Aqsa mosque, the liberation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the State of Israel.
“We watched the second intifada on television” she said, recalling her childhood spent in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. “After every big terror attack—including when children were killed—candy was given out. The education that was given to me was that only Palestinians are the victims, that they are oppressed in this conflict and that the Zionists are the occupying criminals who took the land for themselves.”

Commemoration gone wrong

This week, Mayor of Rome Virginia Raggi reversed the municipality's decision to memorialize late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat by naming one of the city's public parks after him. The original plan sought to honor the Nobel Prize laureate who, in the municipality's view, worked to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. For balance, it was decided to name a street in the Italian capital after the late chief rabbi of Rome, Rabbi Elio Toaff.
In a letter to the municipality, the head of the Jewish community in Rome, Ruth Dureghello, condemned the decision for even drawing a comparison between the two figures. Explaining that the plan would debase the late rabbi, she demanded it be called off. Noting Arafat's direct involvement in the terrorist attacks that killed a young Jewish man in Rome in 1982, Dureghello wrote, "The municipality must decide whether it wants to memorialize the terrorists or their victims."
The municipality responded with that well-known anti-Semitic refrain: "Some of my best friends are Jewish." The supposed "balance" in this trick of transfiguration through the use of an exalted rabbi far removed from politics is reminiscent of the actions of the fascist leader Benito Mussolini, who, when he rose to power Italy in 1923, met with Rome's then-Chief Rabbi Angelo Sacerdoti to ease the minds of Italy's Jews. But when the Grand Council of Fascism embraced the race laws, it adopted the anti-Semitic policies of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and sent the Jews to their deaths. Around 7,900 of Italy's Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and lest we forget, it was Italy that bombed Tel Aviv, killing 130 people, in September 1940.
There is something shocking about the municipality's initial decision to turn the man who made terrorism a Palestinian start-up, who pledged to send "millions of martyrs to Jerusalem" to kill Israel's Jews and in fact did as much right up until his death despite signing the Oslo Accords, into a figure worthy of being memorialized as a peace activist.

By His Own Admission, Wilkerson Cannot Be Trusted

On July 23, retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson appeared on MSNBC and accused Israel of increasing the tension surrounding Al Aqsa Mosque by installing metal detectors nearby. "The ultimate [Israeli] goal with regard to the mosque is to drive the Palestinians and Arabs in general out completely," he said, adding that the Israeli government's "ultimate goal is to cause the Palestinians to react in a way that it can then react viciously and violently as it has in Gaza repeatedly."
With such invective, Wilkerson depicts metal detectors, which are used at holy sites throughout the Middle East, as a provocation against the Palestinians. He also inverts cause and effect, portraying the metal detectors (and Israel's attacks on Hamas in the Gaza Strip) as the cause, rather than the response to Palestinian violence.
A few days after Wilkerson offered his assessment on MSNBC, Israel removed the metal detectors it had installed, thereby demonstrating that when it comes to assessing Israeli intentions, Wilkerson had no idea what he was talking about. If anyone is trying to increase the tensions surrounding the Temple Mount, it is Palestinian leaders who have used the Al Aqsa Mosque as a pretext and as a staging ground for jihadist attacks against Jews for decades.
Wilkerson's recent appearance on MSNBC was not the only time he has defamed Israel. In 2016, he declared that a gas attack on civilians universally blamed on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad "could have been an Israeli false flag operation." When pressed by his interviewer from an internet TV station to describe what the motivation for an Israeli gas attack would be, Wilkerson dodged the question. All he could say is that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "too clueless" to know what was in his country's best interest in the Middle East.
It is Wilkerson who needs a clue. In the same July 21 MSNBC interview, Wilkerson reported a conversation he had with an unnamed Catholic Bishop in Ramallah in 2002 or 2003, who had declared that, "that the biggest enemy for him -- for Christians -- in that region was not the Arabs, it was the Jews."

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A career diplomat on Arabs and Israelis after the War of Independence

Stanton Griffis (1887–1974) had a long career as Ambassador to Poland, Egypt, Argentina and Spain, in addition to having been a top executive at Brentano's, Paramount Pictures and Madison Square Garden.

In his wonderfully named memoir, Lying in State, he publishes a series of autobiographical letters he wrote while in these positions. While he was hardly a Zionist, and he had sme harsh words for the Israeli side as well, here are two notable excerpts from his letters, both written apparently in 1949.

Israel won the war but found an uneasy peace, a peace that rises and falls like the wind in the desert. Israel won not only because of American dollars but because it is very hard to beat crusaders. It is very hard to beat a nation that has a great principle; it is very hard to beat a country that is smart enough to carry out the policy of divide and conquer—Israel knocked out most of the Arab nations one by one.

The Jews were righting an Arab world torn by jealousies and hatreds, and the result was for good or for evil; I hope, for good. ....

The Arab armies were small and untrained. I asked my senior military attache to tell me the size and strength of the army of one of the small Arab countries. He may have been a bit cynical, but his answer was, "They have about five thousand men under arms, about half of them are usually absent without leave, and the other half are looking for them. When they find them they change places."

They had no real will to fight. The Arabs were not impelled by the urge to defend this homeland as the Jews were. And so the world witnessed the astonishing situation in which fewer than one million Jews were victorious against a Moslem world of two hundred and eighty millions.
The result is part of the new map of Europe today.
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 Touring Tel Aviv and Jewish-held Jerusalem, it is not difficult to see why the crusading, organized and hard-working Jews have been able to defy the whole Arab world with its laziness, its corruption, its dreamy philosophies, and its fantastic mixture of great wealth and hideous poverty. Tel Aviv and Jewish-held new Jerusalem constitute a land of milk and honey, of organization, of modernism; that contrasts sharply with the Arab cities of approximately the same size and particularly with Old Jerusalem held by the Arabs and the site of the holy places of three out of the four great world religions.

"In my book," it is certainly a mistake for the Christian tourist to visit Old Jerusalem. The Via Dolorosa, along which Christ was supposed to have carried His cross, is a horror of filthy, stinking Arab shops, little improved, I think, as to sanitation, ptomaine or literacy during the past 2,000 years. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Calvary are beset with commercialism and dirt and I am still sufficiently naive to want to keep my childhood illusions about Jerusalem. I will take a De Mille picture or a Sunday school colored picture of the old days rather than see it as it really is. On the other hand, while, of course, the Jewish wailing wall is deserted, the Moslem mosques are clean and well kept. I devoutly hope that some day some great world organization such as Lawrence Langner has visualized will make it their work to restore Old Jerusalem to a semblance of beauty. Call it what you will, or be of what religion you may, the beautiful illusion is better to create faith than the stinking reality which is the Via Dolorosa today. Langner's idea would be a modern drive of the smelly money changers from the temple.

...
In this specific problem of the Near East I earnestly hope that when the bitterness and enmities die down, the Jews and the Arabs will trade together, that the Jews will be reasonable in their territorial aspirations, and that the Arabs will forget for all time their fanatical leanings towards "Holy War."

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The New York Times recommends Hamas book award choice (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Last week’s anniversary of the Sbarro massacre was celebrated by the Aqsa TV channel, and their audience very much appreciated being reminded of the carnage perpetrated 16 years ago by Palestinian terrorists.

Last year, just in time for the 15th anniversary of the massacre, the American writer Ben Ehrenreich was busy celebrating all the praise he was receiving for his newly published book that glorifies the Tamimis of Nabi Saleh, who are not only ardent supporters of Palestinian terrorism in general, but who also have the greatest admiration for their relative Ahlam Tamimi, the proud mastermind of the Sbarro bombing.

We made a video back then, introducing Ehrenreich’s main protagonists.

It seems that glorifying terror supporters like the Tamimis is good business: for the 16th anniversary of the Sbarro bombing, Ehrenreich’s book came out as a paperback, and – just like last year – the New York Times is doing its best to help Ehrenreich sell his book.

But it’s not just the New York Times that is urging its readers to get Ehrenreich’s book. Already a few weeks ago, the Middle East Monitor (MEMO), an Islamist site that organizes an annual “Palestine Book Awards”-event, shortlisted Ehrenreich’s book for this year’s awards – which is, no doubt, a well-deserved honor for Ehrenreich.

I sincerely hope he will get the award. As I explained three years ago, when veteran anti-Israel activist Ali Abunimah was honored by MEMO, it’s a bit like a Hamas “Books-of-the-Year” award. In Abunimah’s case it was particularly fitting that MEMO’s award presenter was Ang Swee Chai, who once defended her promotion of material produced by white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke by explaining:

“I didn’t know who David Duke was, or that he was connected to the Ku Klux Klan. I am concerned that if there is any truth in the video, that Jews control the media, politics and banking, what on earth is going on? I was worried.”

The lady who so emphatically shares the worries of antisemites around the world remains a “patron” of the “Palestine Book Awards”, and maybe Ehrenreich will be lucky and have the honor to meet her.

Another “patron” of the “Palestine Book Awards” that Ehrenreich might love to meet is Azzam Tamimi. I don’t know if he’s related to the Tamimis Ehrenreich adores, but he definitely shares their enthusiasm for Palestinian terrorism and considers his close ties to Hamas “a great honor.”

In any case, there can be no doubt that Ben Ehrenreich should like the MEMO-crowd just as much as he likes the Tamimis: read MEMO’s moving report on the romance between convicted murderer Nizar Tamimi and convicted murderer Ahlam Tamimi and you’ll have to admit that Ehrenreich himself couldn’t have portrayed this union between two murderous terrorists in more sympathetic terms.

So let’s all cross our fingers that Ben Ehrenreich’s paean to the terror-loving Tamimis will get the Hamas Book Club award – he definitely deserves it, and it would also be a fitting tribute to the good judgement of the New York Times.  

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08/14 Links Pt1: Latma is Back: All About the Facts; Abbas and PLO condemn US Senators

From Ian:

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Legal Grounds Resurrects Latma to Explain How the So-Called Palestinians Lie

I proudly introduce here a one-of-a- kind video produced by the Legal Grounds Campaign, co-chaired by Jeff Daube and myself: “All About the Facts.”
The Latma team has created a song for the video: A biting parody that is laugh-out-loud funny. In English with Hebrew subtitles.
While we expect this to appeal to young people who are ignorant about Israel’s realities or have been misled by false information, we believe you, too, will be delighted by it.
Additionally, we have designed a short website that viewers will be able to connect to after seeing the video; it provides basic facts about Israel’s rights in the land.

PMW: Mahmoud Abbas and PLO condemn US Senators

At a meeting of the PLO Executive Committee, led by PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO condemned the US Senators of the Committee on Foreign Relations for their vote in favor of the Taylor Force Act, which calls to cut all funding to the PA if it continues paying salaries to terrorists and allowances to families of so-called Martyrs.
The PA's rewarding of terror has been a source of contention between the Palestinian Authority and its American and European funders since 2011, when Palestinian Media Watch first exposed the PA's practice of rewarding terrorist prisoners. The U.S. Congress finally decided to act decisively after becoming aware that the family of the murderer of American veteran and university student Taylor Force, who was murdered last year in Tel Aviv, would be receiving a lifetime monthly stipend.
The Palestinian Authority sees all Israelis and all visitors to Israel as legitimate targets and therefore rewards the terrorists and families of those who are either imprisoned or killed. Accordingly, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is defying the international community including the donor countries by continuing to spend $355 million a year on these payments.
The PLO Executive Committee's condemnation of the US Senators is another statement by Mahmoud Abbas that he has no intention of seeing the murder of Israeli civilians and visitors to Israel as terror and therefore will continue to reward the killers.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar: Israel-Jordan peace agreement: The emperor has no clothes

Jordan today, it must be concluded, is working non-stop behind the cover of its peace treaty with Israel to destroy the Jewish State and create a Palestinian one instead. What is worse is that Israel refuses to admit to the situation and continues most carefully to keep the agreement, hoping calm will prevail along the border until the next elections. Every politician knows that if, during his term, relations with Jordan deteriorate, the media – our shallow, slanted and agenda-ridden media – will accuse him of being the cause of the agreement's nullification, making him pay the price in the next round of elections. That is why politicians bolster up the temporary tactical quiet, ignoring the strategic threat to the very existence of the state posed by the peace agreement.
If Israel's leaders felt endangered by the actions of Abdullah, they would do something to prevent his destructive activities, cleverly disguised as military and economic cooperation. The problem is that in their view, short term tactical advantages are preferable to attending to strategic problems that affect the long term. We are all going to pay a high price for this way of running things on the part of Israel's decision makers – as can be seen by the security equipment crisis last month in Jerusalem.
King Hussein was all for Israel's continued existence and did not question Jerusalem 's status. That's why peace with him was positive in general. His son Abdullah changed his father's strategy and works tirelessly to create a Palestinian state on the ruins of the destroyed Jewish one. Now that King Abdullah's nefarious scheme has been revealed, Israel must rethink its Jordanian route and work to create a Palestinian Arab state in all or part of Jordan, since the majority of the people there are Palestinian Arabs.
The alternative is establishing a Palestinian state on Israeli territory with its capital in Eastern Jerusalem, a strategic danger to Israel.
There is no reason that the Jewish people, who returned to its land after 2000 years of exile, should pay with its very existence for the survival of the Hashemites brought by the British from Hijaz to rule the most artificial country in the world – Jordan.

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We Can’t Lose! (Divest This!)

“From an organizing perspective, the tactics of getting local state and federal governments to condemn the bigoted BDS movement provide a common platform and points of unity for people in the United States to start working on. Such legislation – and debate over it - provides a concrete way for citizens and their leaders to directly connect with the issues… and it also provokes a discussion that is often difficult to provoke on the true racist nature of BDS.

And the movement has had an impact on how people think about and discuss the conflict. It’s been great in affecting the discourse and just mobilizing people. Suddenly the discussion around the country is: does BDS represent an act of bigotry that merits the anti-racist legislation condemning it? Which is a very different question than whether or not BDS warrants its self-description as a human rights campaign.”

The above is actually not a quote but rather a paraphrase of statements made by BDS activists regarding how we should perceive their stunning lack of actual victories, given the decade and a half the boycotters have been trying to generate any actual wins for their “movement” (beyond getting stacked student governing bodies to pass meaningless boycott resolutions, or corrupting dying institutions to the point where they will do the BDSers bidding).

The sentiment in the original quote can be summed up by the actual sentence which precedes it which reads: “Advocates of BDS, meanwhile, say that the lack of concrete victories is incidental to the movement’s success.

As I’ve noted before: how nice for them! For such a formulation means that whenever they actually pull some nasty bit of boycott or divestment work over the finish line, it’s time to pop the champagne corks and insist everyone in the world fess up to BDS’s unstoppable momentum. But if they lose, they should still be given credit for opening up conversation and making previously suppressed topics (i.e., their condemnations of Israel that actually ring out across the physical and virtual universes 24/7) discussable.

My paraphrase of their original “we win by losing” argument at the top of this piece should highlight the absurdity of the boycotters’ contentions and pretensions. For can anyone reading this imagine a scenario in which any BDSer anywhere would embrace the notion that every one of the dozens of anti-BDS bills that have been debated in the country represents victory for their enemies – whether or not those bills get passed?

While I’ve generally been lukewarm about the use of legislatures and courts to settle BDS-related disputes (especially when ground-level political alternatives are available), I’ve come to appreciate the utility of creating actual hard costs on those wishing to boycott the Jewish state in the form of having to give up the large American market in exchange for boycotting the small Israeli one.

But whatever you think about this or that piece of legislation (including one making its way through Congress as you read this), we can rest assured that if the bill passes or fails (for any reason), the boycotters will come up with a explanation for why either decision should accrue to their victory column.

But if we play by their rules, then passage of the bill (or any of the dozens of similar bills already passed by state governments) represents a stunning humiliation for the BDS “movement,” and any failure of these bills still counts as a victory for us since it “opens up discussion” of why the boycotters are a bunch of bigoted, hypocritical jerks.

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