CAMERA Op-Ed: An Overlooked Legacy of Arab Rejectionism
It is deceptively easy to reduce the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to a series of dates. The 50thanniversary of the June 1967 Six-Day War and the recent centennialof the Balfour Declaration occasioned considerable—if often flawed—media coverage and discussion by policymakers. Yet another—often-underreported—anniversary is perhaps more telling and highlights a long-running theme that was on full display after President Trump's Dec. 6, 2017 speech recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital: Arab rejection of any Jewish state in the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.Brit woman attacked by Palestinian terrorists demands probe as UK aid ‘used on prisoners'
Nov. 29, 2017 marked the 70thanniversary of Arab states rejecting U.N. Resolution 181. The non-binding recommendation advised the partition of Mandate Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. The Zionist leadership in Mandate Palestine accepted the resolution. Arab nations, including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, denounced it and promised bloodshed if it were passed.
Threatening to shed Jewish blood a mere two years after the end of World War II and the Holocaust was hardly a winning strategy and Resolution 181passed, with support from the United States, the Soviet Union, and others.
Yet, by promising to defy the implementation of the partition plan by force, the Arab leaders voided its very terms, which noted that any “attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution” a “threat to the peace.” This hardly dissuaded the Arab states from unsuccessfully seeking to destroy the fledgling Jewish state in Israel's 1948 War of Independence. In this conflict—and those that preceded it—a man named Amin al-Husseini assisted them.
Although Western press outlets seldom mention him today, al-Husseini should be considered one of the seminal figures of the 20thcentury.Revered as a founding “pioneer” by current-Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, al-Husseini loomed over Middle Eastern politics for decades, reshaping much of it in his image.
International development committee chairman Stephen Twigg has confirmed that he intends to raise the proposal with MPs after he receiving a letter from a British woman who was butchered and left for dead by Palestinian terrorists.
Kay Wilson sent the letter, supported by 130 campaigners, after she discovered that the Palestinian Authority is using British taxpayers’ money to pay her attackers in prison who also killed her American friend Kristine Luken.
The two murderers have received £9,000 each according to reports.
The row highlights how British aid money is being wasted on corrupt regimes supporting the Daily Express campaign to end the £13 billion international development budget and spend it on British priorities including the NHS.
More than 70,000 people have signed an Express petition
Mr Twigg told the Express: “I received Kay Wilson's letter and I take its contents very seriously.”
He said not give a response on behalf of the committee until it had been discussed.
However, he went on: “As a committee we generally undertake two major inquiries at a time.
“However we do have other opportunities to raise issues with Department for International Development (Dfid) ministers and I will discuss with other committee members how best to do so in this case.”
In her letter, supported by 130 campaigners, Ms Wilson accuses the Dfid committee of ignoring the issue and ministers of misleading parliament about payments.
She described how she and her friend were held for 30 minutes at knifepoint then gagged and bound before being butchered with machetes.
IsraellyCool: WATCH: Netanyahu (Politely) Roasts Foreign Press
Israel’s Government Press Office held its regular reception for foreign correspondents in Israel. As we know, there are way more foreign correspondents in Israel than almost anywhere else in the world (especially considering how small this country is).
The quiet fireworks are in the first 6 minutes of Bibi Netanyahu speaking:
Off the top he highlights US Ambassador Friedman for his exceptionally strong tweet following Saturday’s heinous murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six, rabbi & Magen David Adom medic. Here’s Friedman’s tweet:
Statements from the official representative of the US Government and State Department don’t come more unequivocal than this. No calls for restraint, no “both sides”, just condemnation of evil terrorists and the people who support and send them. I didn’t notice particularly abundant coverage of just how different that tweet is from ambassadors of previous Administrations.
Immediately after this (at 2 mins) he lists three stories he directly challenges the foreign media for under covering or even ignoring. He asks for a show of hands for who covered each point. He gets a few on point 1, precisely none on point 2 and I suspect they were all nervously looking at their shoes on point 3.
1. Payments by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority direct to terrorists and their famlies.
2. Massive extra investment in Arab citizens of Israel for education, health and opportunities.
3. Did the journalists’ outlets call the Iranian Rouhani government “moderate” even as it is shooting peaceful protestors in the streets and dumping them in torture prisons?
Evelyn Gordon: The U.S. Must Show Iranians That They Can’t Have It All
Iran’s decision to spend most of its sanctions relief on guns rather than butter meant ordinary Iranians saw little improvement in their own situation. Until recently, however, the regime could mollify public anxieties by stalling for time. The money is going to keep pouring in, they’d note, and soon there will be enough for everyone.
But President Trump’s decertification of the nuclear deal in October upended this calculus. European companies became more reluctant to do business with Iran, fearing loss of access to the much more important American market. And new American sanctions on Iran became a real possibility.
Consequently, the continued influx of money was no longer guaranteed. The billions Suleimani spent on his military adventures weren’t necessarily going to be replaced by a flood of European investment, and surging economic growth might once again be crimped by new sanctions. Ordinary Iranians were suddenly back in the pre-nuclear deal world, where the regime’s bad behavior had real economic costs.
In this sense, the media debate over whether the protests were “economic” or “political” was ludicrous. They were both because the protesters understood that their economic woes stemmed from their government’s political choices. That’s why they chanted slogans like “Forget about Palestine, forget about Gaza, think about us” and “Leave Syria alone, think about us instead.”
They also understood that those political choices were a product of the regime’s very nature, which is why they chanted slogans like “Death to the Dictator” and “Death to the Islamic Republic.” The nuclear deal was the Islamic Republic’s best shot at reconciling its desire to export Shi’ite revolution with its need to satisfy its people’s desire for a decent quality of life. If that doesn’t work, the regime clearly doesn’t have any solution to this dilemma and never will.
But if protests are ever to grow to the point that they actually threaten the regime, many more Iranians–especially the middle-class Tehranis who sat this round out–must come to understand this. And easing economic pressure on Iran would send the exact opposite message: that the world actually will let the Islamic Republic have its cake and eat it, too.