Love of the Land: March 2018

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Saeb Erekat ludicrously claims paying terrorists is mandatory under international law - by Elder of Ziyon

...As usual, Erekat is a liar. But he knows that paying terrorists looks very bad for the PLO, and he wants to throw as much dust on the concept as he can.

Elder of Ziyon..
30 March '18..

PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat stated yesterday that paying terrorists were an obligation under international law.

And it isn't the PLO that should pay them - but Israel!

However, if Israel refuses to pay the terrorists, then the Palestinians must pick up the slack.

Yes, he really said this.

“Palestine pays a financial price for the occupation because Israel refuses to uphold its international obligations regarding prisoners. We will not abandon our prisoners. We consider this a moral and legal obligation enshrined by Article 81 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. While Israel will not make these payments, as required by international humanitarian law, Palestine will provide for the families through the Palestinian social welfare system – as any other nation worldwide provides for the maintenance of their citizens.”

OK, let's look at Article 81 of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

Friday, March 30, 2018

A celebration from generation to generation, not to be taken for granted - by Nadav Shragai

...Indeed, neither the birthday of the Jewish people nor the birthday of the Jewish state, linked together by the chain of generations, lie within the realm of normalcy or self-evidence. While there is no problem getting used to their existence, we must always remember, recite and repeat, making sure such milestones are never taken for granted.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
First Published 14 April '14..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=8075

It was a damp night in 1878. David Gutman was speaking to a group of pioneers who had joined him in celebrating the first Seder night on land known as Mulabbis, what later became the settlement of Petach Tikva.

"Today we are the first birds to greet the light of dawn," prophesied Gutman, an optimistic and tireless man. The reality in which they lived was quite dismal, rife with diseases and complicated by an existential struggle. But on that Seder evening, the pioneers bandied about their comprehensive vision of hope, liberation and light. (These details and more were revealed recently with the publication of Yoel Moshe Solomon's personal diary, by his family).

Tonight, 136 (now 140) years later, in much more prosperous times, living under true sovereignty and independence, we will mark Judaism's original independence day, the day our nation was born some 3,500 years ago. While this original independence day doesn't try to compete with modern Israel's Independence Day three weeks from now, it does imbue a phrase we will shortly recite with contemporary credence: "The nation of Israel, throughout the generations."

Gutman and his friends, just like Hillel who "put Pesach matzah and bitter herbs together and ate them," Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua and their colleagues in Bnei Brak, or other generations of Jews, imagined themselves -- as individuals and as a nation -- going out from Egypt. If the generations of Jews had never imagined themselves undertaking that journey and establishing the traditional Seder evening, it's doubtful whether we would even be able to speak about a state of the Jewish people.

Chelm and the Palestinian statehood-demographic crisis dilemma - by Gideon Sa'ar

...To put it simply, besides the loss of security we will experience, God forbid, a sovereign Palestinian state would also mean the loss of demographic control. In fact, the establishment of a Palestinian state is the only way the Jewish majority in Israel will be lost. Not only does establishing such a state not solve the demographic problem, it is actually what causes it. And what will our own sages of Chelm tell us then? Certainly more material for superstitious folk tales.

Gideon Sa'ar..
Israel Hayom..
29 March '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/palestinian-statehood-will-cause-the-actual-demographic-crisis/

I was reminded of the Yiddish saying "bubba maisa" (which translates into something like old wives tales) when I read the apocalyptic headlines this week warning that the number of Jews and Arabs in Israel were approaching parity, or perhaps already equal.

I specifically recalled a common trope that revolves around the stupidity of the inhabitants of Chelm, a Polish town of well-wishing fools who consider themselves enlightened. In reality, however, they consistently exacerbate problems by misunderstanding essential facts or create new problems by trying to fix that which is not broken. Just like the fools in these tales, those who use demographics to say "Keep out!" are not really interested in understanding the facts. The truth is we have never enjoyed a better demographic situation: Jewish fertility rates are constantly on the rise, having passed Arab fertility rates in 2017 in the whole country, including Judea and Samaria. Along with Jewish immigration to Israel, this means the Jewish majority will only grow in the future.

For some reason, however, there are those among us who would rather rely on dubious statistics provided by the Palestinians that they purposely inflated. In the Palestinian Authority's fake registry, for example, a Palestinian who has lived in Brazil for 20 years is counted. By the same token, we can easily count every Israeli that has emigrated, which would add some 600,000 or more.

The real question here is why are we even bothering to count the Palestinians living in territories from which we withdrew a generation ago that are no longer under our control? For Israel disconnected from the Palestinian population in two moves: establishing the PA in the 1990s through the Oslo Accords and unilaterally withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in 2005. One of the main justifications for these moves was demographics. Today, almost the entire Palestinian population is under Palestinian control – either under the PA in Judea and Samaria or under Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

So why do we hear the same alarming tune after withdrawing? Should we, by the same token, add the number of Arabs on the other side of the Jordan River as well?

Actually, the ‘March of Return’ explains a lot - by Jonathan S. Tobin

If the goal is two states, then why do the Palestinians keep talking about “return?”

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
29 March '18..

For some in the Palestinians’ international cheering squad, the March 30 “Land Day” demonstrations could be a long-hoped for turning point. If the massive protests planned for the Gaza border go off on Friday without violence, then the battle against Israel will, they hope, no longer be depicted as one primarily about terrorism.

Instead, it will be portrayed as a civil-rights struggle comparable to the one waged in the United States against segregation.

But there are a few problems with that formulation.

The first is that the organization planning this “nonviolent” demonstration is Hamas—an Islamist terror group, not the NAACP. Violence is part of Hamas’s raison d’être, so expecting any action associated with the group to be completely divorced from violence is a long shot. The purpose of any march on a heavily armed border where terror incidents are a regular occurrence will likely be to provoke the Israel Defense Forces into acting to prevent the security fence around Gaza from being beached. The goal will be to produce more “martyrs” among those the terror group already uses as human shields so as to further embitter the conflict, not to effect change.

The key question about these demonstrations is not whether efforts to cross into Israel will lead to bloodshed. The most significant thing about the “Land Day” rally is its theme: “the Great March of Return.” The Palestinian emphasis on the concept of “return” isn’t merely a marketing slogan; it’s a reminder that 70 years after Israel’s birth, the Palestinians are still clinging to the idea of eliminating the Jewish state.

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Thursday, March 29, 2018

Counting Votes at the UN Human Rights Council - by Elliott Abrams

...Hat’s off to Australia, which has just joined the Human Rights Council for a 3-year term and stood with the United States. The Australians have stated their “principled opposition” to singling out Israel, and said that they would vote against all the resolutions brought under “Item 7.” Australia has similarly opposed one-sided resolutions in the General Assembly. It is shameful that the Aussies have not been joined by other democracies, but they deserve great credit for taking this stance the moment they joined the Human Rights Council.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
29 March '18..
Link: https://www.cfr.org/blog/counting-votes-un-human-rights-council

The UN Human Rights Council passed five more anti-Israel resolutions last week. This was not a great surprise, and U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the Council “grossly biased against Israel.” She added that “our patience is not unlimited” and again threatened to leave the Council unless its obsession with Israel ended.

The Council (as Haley noted) passed three resolutions on Iran and two on North Korea, making the concentration on Israel particularly grotesque. Israel is the only country whose conduct must, by Council rules (the so-called Item 7), be reviewed every time the Council meets.

Still, the vote counting is interesting. One resolution called for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights. That resolution got 25 votes, almost entirely from Muslim countries plus a few dictatorships like Cuba, Venezuela, and China. No European country voted yes. (Why Brazil, Peru, and Chile voted for it is a mystery, and when our State Department gets staffed up it might start pressuring them to change their votes.) Voting against this resolution were Australia, Belgium, Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Panama, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Togo, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States. Abstaining were the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Rwanda, and Switzerland. Absent was Mongolia. That means that of the members of the Council, 25 voted yes but 22 did not—displaying a good lack of enthusiasm for the proposal.

The other resolutions passed by higher margins: 27 in favor or 34 or 41, with 43 voting for “The Right of the Palestinian People to Self-Determination” while only Australia and the United States voted no (with the DRC abstaining and Mongolia absent).

That any democracy should vote for that mendacious resolution is unpardonable. Those who did include Belgium, Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. It includes phrases and conclusions that are simply false, such as reference to Israel’s “forcible transfer of Palestinians”—something that does not exist. It calls upon Israel to “immediately end its occupation of the Occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” which is absurd. As those governments must know, there is no way safely to do that (safely for Israel, Jordan, or the Palestinians, considering the possibility that Hamas, with Iranian support, would take over). Nor should any decent country be speaking of the “occupation” of East Jerusalem, as if Israeli control of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem were some kind of scandal and crime.

Unwanted visitors on Israel's Gaza border - by Arnold Roth

...What's certain in the wake of all this Hamas grandstanding and provocation is that at tens of thousands of Israeli homes on Friday night, the traditional retelling of the exodus narrative and the pleasures of the once-a-year seder meal will be conducted with empty chairs at the table as ordinary Israelis pay the price of constant vigilance.

Tuesday's Gazan intruders minus their
grenades and knives [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
29 March '18..

As Israel approaches one of the traditionally relaxed annual periods in a locale that's not so notably relaxed, security events in the south are causing rising concern.

Times of Israel reports this morning that two Gazan Palestinian Arabs were intercepted yesterday (Wednesday) immediately after getting through the border fence and despite the heightened security alert that is currently in effect there. They were equipped with a knife and box cutters, and are now "being questioned" as the standard media release formula states it.

The thing is, this was the fourth breach of the security fence around Gaza in a week. What's going on?

Tomorrow, Friday, the eve of Passover and the day practically every Israeli has some Passover-related task to take care of at home or in the workplace ahead of Friday night's family-oriented seder gatherings, the Hamas regime plans - it has been saying for some weeks - to conduct "protests" along the boundary with Israel.

They say this is going to include "masses" of Gazans taking part. Their media advisers have coined the name of this dangerous exercise “March of Return” and it is planned to go on for six weeks until May 15, the day the Palestinian Arabs have come to call Nakba, catastrophe. This "march" will include the constructing of a tent city on the Gazan side of the border and the participation of "tens of thousands of Gaza residents", which there's little doubt Hamas - which rules the Gazans with an iron fist, can arrange.

But have no fear. They're giving assurances that this is going to be a “peaceful protest”:

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Those ‘three little terrorists’ represent all that’s gone wrong in 30 years - by Stephen M. Flatow

The men who crossed into Israel from Gaza were nothing to worry about, according to the media and the left. It’s a story we’ve heard before, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
28 March '18..

Three Palestinian Arab terrorists were captured this week on their way to massacre Israeli Jews. Let’s see what we can learn from this incident.

To begin with, it reminds us of the incredible, stubborn refusal of many major media outlets to use the “T”-word. The three would-be killers were armed with hand grenades and knives. Talk about being caught red-handed! Yet the Associated Press could not bring itself to acknowledge that they were terrorists. According to the A.P., they were merely “three Palestinians from Gaza.” Like Osama bin Laden was “a Saudi Arabian visiting Pakistan.”

Despite the fact that the terrorists were on their way to perpetrate a massacre, the A.P. didn’t think the story merited more than four paragraphs. I guess it wouldn’t want to strain its correspondent’s typing fingers by asking to delve more into the implications of the incident.

Not that The New York Times or the The Washington Post was any better. They didn’t think the story was worth troubling their correspondents at all. They simply reprinted the tiny A.P. article.

The Associated Press articles mentioned, vaguely, that “it was the second such breach of the border in recent days.” That’s it. No explanation as to who was doing the “breaching” or why. It sounds as if they were innocent prisoners making a break for freedom in some low-budget B movie from 1952.

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Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in Gaza in 1995.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018

The Second Partition Plan that died when the Arabs rejected it - by Sheri Oz

...The Second Partition Plan was conceivable because the 1947 Jews somehow could not believe that we no longer needed to ask anyone for permission to live and breathe. The longevity of the Two-State-Solution Myth is because many of us still cannot get that we are a sovereign nation and need not beg others to recognize our right to exist as such.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
28 March '18..

Once upon a time, there was a huge piece of land that was taken under wing by arrogant European has-been empires when they successfully destroyed a rival empire. They divvied up the land and told the world they would hold it in trust for the indigenous peoples of those regions.One of these was named the Mandate of Palestine by the trustees. It was supposed to be a homeland for the Jewish people given that it was sitting on our ancestral lands.

The neighbours did not like what they saw — those Jews! “There goes the neighbourhood,” they exclaimed!

The Arabs protested to the British, who then cut up the land into a larger piece and a smaller piece, using the Jordan River as a convenient dividing line. They did not ask the Jews which piece they wanted – you know, unlike the wise parent of two children fighting over the last piece of cake. The parent tells one kid to cut the cake and the other kid gets to choose his or her half. In this case, the Jews were unconcerned with the difference in size between the two pieces of the Mandate. If given the choice, they would have selected the piece they got in any case, for that was the piece with the bulk of the lands of historical significance to us:

The Jews were prepared to continue the work they had already begun in developing the infrastructure of their new modern state. However, the Arabs just could not let it go. So the British came up with what came to be called The Partition Plan. It was really the SECOND partition plan, the first having already been executed and the keys to the newly invented kingdom having been given to the Hashemites in the 1920s, the deal signed finally in 1947.

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Israel's new academic ethics code: A breath of fresh air - by

...All should agree that while blatantly racist speech is protected by law, engaging in it is unacceptable in the classroom – and rightfully so. Similarly, while it might be protected free speech for professors to curse at right-wing students in the hallways, call politicians neo-Nazis in class and scold students who show up to class in IDF uniform (all of which have occurred in Israeli academia), is that what we want to see in our universities? It is precisely for these reasons that academic codes of ethics are needed, just as codes of ethics are needed for doctors, lawyers and nearly every other profession.

Eytan Meir..
Israel Hyom..
27 March '18..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-new-academic-ethics-code-a-breath-of-fresh-air/

This week, Israel's Council for Higher Education approved the hotly debated academic code of ethics written by the author of the IDF Code of Ethics, Professor Asa Kasher, which aims to set clear guidelines regarding the role of political activity in academia.

Among other things, the code seeks to address the widespread phenomenon wherein certain professors – under the guise of academic freedom – use their positions to subject students to politicized material that reflects only one side of an academic debate, while at the same time prohibiting other points of view, particularly from students.

Contrary to the inaccurate claims of the code's detractors, the code does not in any way stifle political debate or ban political discussion from the classroom.

The code is a breath of fresh air for Israeli academia. It aims to create an environment in which students are presented with both sides of the discussion, allowing them to think critically, engage in vibrant academic exchange, and arrive at their own conclusions.

Unfortunately, many professors believe that their academic mandate gives them the right to preach only one side of the debate, while bullying and berating students who voice opposing views.

In more extreme, but not uncommon, instances, right-wing students are afraid to voice their opinions in class or to write pro-Israel content in their papers, out of concern that their grades will be negatively affected.

This is not academic freedom. This is not pluralism. This is coercion in the service of indoctrination.

Futile Publicity Stunts, Human Shields and Another Palestinian “Return March” - by Yoni Ben Menachem

...No country in the world would agree to tens of thousands of demonstrators, accompanied by various kinds of media, infiltrating their borders and trying to get into their territory. Hamas is making cynical use of Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip as cannon fodder against the IDF, who have to protect the border fence and cannot allow infiltration into Israeli territory at any price.

Yoni Ben Menachem..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
27 March '18..

The military wing of Hamas began a “defense exercise” in the Gaza Strip on March 25, 2018. Sources in Gaza say it is a show of strength by Hamas in preparation for the large “return march” that is supposed to take place between Land Day, marked on March 30, and Nakba Day on May 15.

According to these sources, the exercise provides a double message. On the one hand, it is a message to residents of Gaza wanting to participate in the return march that there is someone who will defend them from the IDF. On the other hand, it is a deterrent message to the IDF, because the IDF needs to know that if it harms the marchers, this will lead to a security escalation. This war could then spread within the boundaries of the State of Israel and will not be confined only to the Gaza Strip.

The march of a mass of Palestinians toward the border with Israel is not a Palestinian invention. It was first invented by Hizbullah, who already tried it on Israel’s northern borders on Nakba Day on May 15, 2011.

During that six-hour event, several hundred young Palestinian men and women tried to cross the Lebanese and Syrian borders with Israel. The IDF soldiers at the border were taken by surprise and were compelled to open fire. As a result, ten demonstrators were killed, and another 100 were injured.

Now, Hamas is attempting to replicate Hizbullah’s exercise and turn this into an event that will last several weeks. Its basic premise is that the large media presence on the Palestinian side will provide enough protection for the Palestinian marchers to overcome the “fear barrier,” approach the border fence with Israel, and try to cross it. In their estimation, IDF soldiers will act with great caution and won’t use live ammunition due to the media presence among the marchers.

Using Refugees as a Human Shield

No country in the world would agree to tens of thousands of demonstrators, accompanied by various kinds of media, infiltrating their borders and trying to get into their territory. Hamas is making cynical use of Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip as cannon fodder against the IDF, who have to protect the border fence and cannot allow infiltration into Israeli territory at any price.

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Tuesday, March 27, 2018

The Palestinian Way of War: The March of Return in Gaza - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

All Palestinian entities and organizations – from the PLO and PA through the factions, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Salafi groups – have long sought to kill or maim Israeli Jews and damage or destroy their property. The March of Return in Gaza, the latest Palestinian innovation, is similarly intended to lead to bloodshed. Hopefully, Israel will be able to quash the event to save both Israeli and Palestinian lives.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 782..
27 March 18..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/gaza-march-return/

Ever since Fatah waged its first act of sabotage against a pipeline of the National Water Carrier on January 1, 1965, the newly emergent Palestinian national movement has waged a consistent war against Israel.

At the most basic level, Palestinians and others have been consistently urged for decades – by all Palestinian entities and organizations, from the PLO and PA through the factions, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Salafi organizations – to kill or maim Israeli Jews and damage or destroy their property.

These various organizations only disagree over the tactics to achieve these objectives.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (or Palestinian State, as it appears in its logos and correspondence) is constrained by the necessity to achieve these objectives through “popular struggle” – in other words, through sticks, stones, and incendiary bombs, but excluding firearms, suicide bombings, and missiles.

The other organizations have no such restraint, including Fatah, the organization Abbas heads in addition to the PLO and the PA. Their only limitations are their capabilities. In the West Bank, these are very low thanks to Israeli Security Agency intelligence, preventive arrests, and security cooperation with the PA, which shares an interest in destroying Hamas, a common enemy.

As experts in the production of violence, these Palestinian entities and organizations know that the “routine” production of violence through “armed” and “popular” struggle is insufficient – not only for the achievement of meaningful political objectives such as Israeli withdrawal, but also for holding the international media limelight in the battle to delegitimize the Jewish State.

To put it bluntly, the killings of two fathers of large families and the severe maiming of two Israelis – the crop of Palestinian violence in January and February 2018 – did not make headlines beyond the Israeli and Palestinian media. This level of impact cannot change the balance of power between the two sides.

BBC World Service ‘Newshour’ erases context from revisited Gaza story - by Hadar Sela

...Readers can judge for themselves whether or not Menendez’s repeated claim that Dr Abuelaish has “turned his tragedy into a powerful plea for reconciliation” is supported by his interviewee’s entirely one-sided messaging. However, in an item in which words such as ‘Hamas’, ‘terrorism’ and ‘rocket attacks’ did not appear even once and vital context was omitted, it is blatantly obvious that BBC World Service audiences did not hear a balanced account of this story.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
27 March '18..

The March 21st afternoon edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newshour‘ included an interview that was described by presenter James Menendez at the start of the show as follows:

Menendez: “…and later in the programme we’ll hear from a Palestinian gynecologist who lost his three eldest daughters when an Israeli tank shelled his home in Gaza. But he’s somehow turned tragedy into an appeal for reconciliation.”

Later on listeners heard a long interview – lasting nearly eight minutes – which appears to have been conducted for no reason other than the fact that the guest happened to be in London for a variety of speaking engagements.

A clip from the interview was also later promoted on social media and notably its accompanying synopsis includes at least some of the relevant context that was completely absent from the interview broadcast to millions of listeners around the world.

“The shelling took place as Israel was involved in operations against Hamas. The army said troops had fired shells at suspicious figures in Dr Abuelaish’s house, believing they were observers directing sniper fire. He denies that any militants were hiding in or firing from his house.”

Menendez introduced the prerecorded interview as follows:

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Ben-Gurion and Bolton vs. the United Nations - by Rafael Medoff

Rather than seeking to change the culture of an organization whose culture will never change, Jewish officials could put their time and resources to better use by concentrating on matters of greater consequence. As indicated by this week’s five resolutions—and the many hundreds that preceded them—some biases are simply too deeply entrenched to be dislodged. Acknowledging that fact may be uncomfortable. But it’s a reality that has been apparent since Ben-Gurion’s time.

Rafael Medoff..
JNS.org..
26 March '18..

Presumably, David Ben-Gurion would have disagreed with John Bolton on a number of issues. But the Israeli founding father likely would have appreciated the incoming National Security Advisor’s strong skepticism regarding the United Nations.

“The [U.N. headquarters] in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” (“Fifteen might be better,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens quipped this week.)

Ben-Gurion’s famous assessment of the world body came in the form of a remark he made at an Israeli cabinet meeting in 1955. He was responding to a suggestion that the United Nations’ 1947 plan for partitioning Palestine brought about the creation of the State of Israel. “No, no, no!” Ben-Gurion shouted. “Only the daring of the Jews created the state, and not any oom-shmoom resolution.”

“Oom” is the Hebrew acronym for “United Nations,” and the use of “shm” as a prefix is, of course, a well-known Yiddishism indicating contempt for the subject. The phrase “oom-shmoom” became a fixed part of the Israel political lexicon and has been invoked by other Israeli leaders over the years.

When the United Nations in 1997 condemned Israel for building homes in the Har Homa section of Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked (in Hebrew), “If this is all the ‘Oom’ is good for, then truly it is ‘Shmoom.’ ” Every Israeli adult instantly understood his reference to the unforgettable words of the country’s first premier.

American Jewish organizations had high hopes for the United Nations and actively promoted its establishment in 1945. It was not long, however, before its limitations and biases began to emerge.

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Monday, March 26, 2018

Checking the Washington Post’s Fact Checker - by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser and Sander Gerber

While trying to impugn Prime Minister Netanyahu’s correct assertion that the total 2017 funding of the Prisoner and Martyr Program is $350 million, Kessler misses the purpose of these entities. The Fact Checker’s subjective judgment misses the main point: the PA terror payments policy incentivizes terror that has claimed thousands of lives, including those of Americans. Providing any justification or rationalization for this is outrageous, immoral, illegal, and unacceptable. Ending this moral obfuscation may pave the road to peace. Ignoring it will eternalize the current impasse and encourage more terror.

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser/Sander Gerber..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
25 March '18..
Link: http://jcpa.org/washington-posts-fact-checker/

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker’s column, “Does the Palestinian Authority pay $350 million a year to ‘terrorists and their families’?” (March 14, 2018), was less successful at fact-checking than at whitewashing the official Palestinian Authority policy of promoting and incentivizing terror by rewarding terrorists.

Glenn Kessler’s article represents some of the major problems with the attitude of Western media toward the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It verifies that the Palestinian Authority pays huge sums to perpetrators of terrorist acts and their families and confirms that the PA operates two organizations dedicated to this purpose. It also affirms that the salaries are malignly promised in advance to the terrorists and grow as the violence perpetrated causes greater damage.

Yet it fails in its unmandated moral exploration and judgment of what constitutes “terror.” Appallingly, it excuses payments to civilian attackers for intentional violence against innocents to promote political and religious goals. After 9/11, ISIS massacres, and Palestinian murders of Jews, Kessler shamefully resorts to the sloppy and evil excuse: “this brings us back to the cliché that one man’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.”

As Ambassador Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, noted: “Kessler enters the swamp of moral relativism, which in the current context means that no one is in a position to judge even the most heinous terror attacks, and this leads to terror with impunity and the world becomes more dangerous as international standards are not upheld.”

This attitude ignores the context. The terrorists are paid in accordance with Palestinian Authority law that defines them as the “fighting sector” of Palestinian society. There are two PA Institutions established by law to provide for the “prisoners and martyrs,” which are allocated $350 million in the official PA budget for 2017. In addition, Palestinian leaders regularly honor terrorists, erect memorials to commemorate them, and PA curricula and media praise them. This reflects the Palestinian narrative that regards the ongoing struggle against Zionism as an imperative for any Palestinian until victory. This is the logic behind the terror payments that is ignored, but should not be,

Why Palestinians Also Need an Israel Victory - by Daniel Pipes

...If Palestinian defeat is good for Israel, it is ironically even better for Palestinians, who will finally be liberated from ugly ambitions, revolutionary rhetoric, and genocidal fantasies. An educated and skilled people can then improve its life by building its polity, economy, society, and culture. Think of this as a miniature version of post-1945 Germany. And if diplomacy is now premature, issues such as Jerusalem, borders, and resources can be fruitfully discussed after a Palestinian defeat. The two-state solution, an absurdity at present (it means asking Israel to strengthen its mortal enemy) will make good sense after a Palestinian defeat.

Daniel Pipes..
Austrailian..
24 March '18..

The moment is right for fresh thinking in order to dispatch the old and stale Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

With Arabs focused on other issues – the Iranian nuclear weapon build-up, civil wars in Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq, Turkey going rogue, the Islamist surge, and the water drought – hoary anti-Zionist taboos have lost much of their pungency. A prosperous and strong Israel has lost hope in decades' worth of "peace process." The cowboy in the White House likes breaking with precedent. And the global Left's turn toward antisemitism, exemplified by Jeremy Corbyn of the British Labour Party, adds further reason for urgency; when it eventually holds power, the implications for Israel will be dire.

Conventional wisdom holds that the Arab-Israeli conflict will end only when the Palestinians' grievances are sufficiently satisfied so that they accept the Jewish state of Israel. This paradigm has reigned almost unchallenged since the Oslo Accords of September 1993; yet, that 25-year period has also made clear that Palestinians in overwhelming numbers (I estimate 80 percent based on scholarship and polling data going back a century) seek not peaceful co-existence with Israel but the brutal elimination of the "Zionist entity." With such attitudes, it comes as no surprise that every round of much-hyped negotiations has eventually failed.

I shall propose an entirely different approach to resolve the conflict, a reversion to the strategy of deterrence and victory associated with Zionism's great strategist, Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940): Israel should aim not to please its enemies but to defeat them. Counterintuitively, I shall show why Palestinians need precisely such an Israel Victory to slough off their current oppression, extremism, and violence, and to become a successful people.

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Who would've thought? BBC double standards on terrorism on view again - by Hadar Sela

...And so, while the BBC regularly uses appropriate language in its coverage of terror attacks in France (and elsewhere), its reporting on attacks against Israelis does not employ the same terminology.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
25 March '18..

BBC News website coverage of the March 23rd terror attack in south-west France included two reports – “France hostage crisis: ‘Two dead’ in Trèbes supermarket” and “France shooting: Police kill supermarket gunman” – featuring an insert titled “Major terror attacks in France”.

Obviously the BBC’s description of those attacks as acts of terror is appropriate – notwithstanding the corporation’s supposed editorial policy of avoiding the word ‘terrorist’ without attribution in order to avoid “value judgements”.

However, as regular readers will be aware, while its reports on attacks in certain locations (especially Europe and North America) do use such terminology, the BBC consistently refuses to use the word terror in its reporting on comparable attacks against Israelis and audiences have never been provided with an insert titled “Major terror attacks in Israel”.

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Sunday, March 25, 2018

Thoughts concerning Palestinian Christian Theologians against Israel - by Denis MacEoin

No one is suggesting that Palestinian Christians should invite their own deaths by outrightly defying the Muslim majority. It seems inexplicable, however, why these Christians prefer to join with the Islamic resistance rather than to remain silent, accept their supposedly inferior status, and refrain from overt endorsements of what Muslims view as right.

Denis MacEoin..
Gatestone Institute..
25 March '18..

It is sad but possibly to be expected that many Palestinian Christians – who are constantly under threat but have not been killed or expelled – identify closely with the cause of their Muslim fellows as they engage in often violent "resistance" to Israel and the limited Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank (Judaea and Samaria). Christians may have a long history in Syria and Palestine, but the earliest Christians, including Christ, were, of course, Jews. According to Christianity Today:

The Acts of the Apostles states that the first Christians in Jerusalem were Jews, and historians believe that even after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Christianity in the Holy Land kept its Jewish flavor. But the Jewish revolt of Bar-Kokhba in 135 changed all this; Rome showed no mercy to the Jews and obliterated Jerusalem, renaming the city "Aelia Capitolina" and the country of Israel "Palestine." With this blow, the Christian Jewish community effectively disappeared.

As non-Jewish Christians emerged, persecution continued throughout the Roman Empire until the emperor Constantine converted in 312 and later imposed Christianity as the sole religion.

Under the Roman and Byzantine empires, the Christians of Palestine enjoyed freedom to live and worship as they pleased. In 634, however, a mere two years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Muslim Arab forces defeated the Byzantines and took possession of Syria, of which Palestine was the southern region. "Palestine," although an ancient name, was imposed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in an apparent attempt to sever the land even then from its Jewish roots in response to a revolt in 135 CE.

Palestine, however, was never a separate state or province, regardless of its rulers. From 1923-1948, it was the name of the area under the British mandate: during that time, everyone born there – Christian, Muslim and Jew – was officially a Palestinian, with "Palestine" stamped on all passports.

Then, in May of 1948, five Arab armies attacked Israel on the day of its birth, explicitly hoping to end the new country before it could start. The people now called Palestinians were those Arabs who fled during that war, after their leaders promised them they would be able to come back and reclaim their homes as soon as the Arab victory was complete.

That the Arabs might lose this war – which was what occurred-- was never factored into this promise. When, after the war, the Arabs who had fled wished to come back, Israel reminded them that they had not exactly been allies, and declined to admit them.

During that war of 1947-48, Jordan illegally captured and later annexed much of Jerusalem. The Jews who had lived in those areas fled. Overnight, the Christians who had stayed in Gaza and the West Bank found themselves regarded as second-class, tolerated citizens, dhimmi people with few rights, who were forced to live as outnumbered "infidels" under Muslim rule. As such, they had no legal recourse and were under continual threat for their property and lives.

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Surprise? Palestinians Tortured; Media Silent - by Bassam Tawil

...The Palestinians are, first and foremost, victims of their dictatorial and abusive leaders. Sadly, they are done no service by a biased and unprofessional media that acts as sort of collective "yes-men" to widespread human rights violations under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
23 March '18..

What happens when Palestinians make allegations of torture and assaults on their public freedoms? If the finger is being pointed at Israel, the international media falls over itself to bring the story to the broadest possible audience.

The story would not even end there. Human rights organizations and United Nations agencies would blast Israel for "abusing" Palestinian human rights and the Security Council would hold an emergency session to condemn Israel.

The response, however, when Palestinians fall victim to the practices of their own governments -- the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip -- is a completely different one. That is when silence descends upon the international media community hides behind a blue wall of silence

How can one account for this sinkhole in communications? Simple: when the story is not about alleged atrocities committed by Israel, from the point of view of the Western media outlets it is presumably not a tale worthy of being told.

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Swedish foreign minister Wallström isn’t anti-Semitic, she’s a demagogue - by Stephen M. Flatow

The EU sponsors illegal buildings which they know Israel will demolish, and then Sweden’s foreign minister declares that “more demolitions” are “hindering the peace process.” Can there be greater chutzpah?

Stephen M. Flatow..
Israel National News..
23 March '18..
Link: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21892

“If I am accused of being an anti-Semite for promoting a two-state solution I think that hurts the debate,” the foreign minister of Sweden haughtily announced this week.

Foreign Minister Margot Wallström is right—calling somebody anti-Semitic just for promoting Palestinian statehood is counterproductive. There’s just one catch. No reasonable person is calling her that. Nobody who is part of the serious public conversation, in Europe or the United States, is making such an allegation. It’s a product of her imagination.

I’m not saying that the foreign minister of Sweden is delusional. I’m not saying she’s imagining things. It’s actually worse than that: she’s a demagogue. She knows full well that no serious person is calling her an anti-Semite. For her to make that charge is an old propaganda trick. You claim that your critics said some crazy thing which they didn’t say, and then you argue against the words that you put in their mouths. See how that works? You come out looking reasonable, and they come out looking crazy.

This all started when Foreign Minister Wallström was interviewed by the Swedish Jewish newspaper “Judisk Krönika” (Jewish Chronicle) on March 19. Sweden was the first EU country to recognize the Palestinian Authority-occupied territories as the “State of Palestine,” and has given the Palestinians more than $700-million in aid since 1993.

Given Sweden’s strongly pro-Palestinian record, I guess it wasn’t surprising when Wallström told the interviewer of her continuing support for Palestinian statehood. She even defended the PA’s policy of providing salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists. (Translation provided by Swedish journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein.)

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Evidently Not Fit To Print: NY Times Ignores Palestinian Insult of US Diplomat - by Ira Stoll

...It’s not the first time this year that the Times has sanitized incendiary comments by Mahmoud Abbas. Times coverage of a January speech by Abbas was faulted by Noah Pollak, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, for having “left out all the good stuff — the rank anti-Semitism, the crazed conspiracy theorizing, the threats of violence, the glorification of terrorists.” And also, he might have added, the dog insults.

Ira Stoll..
Algemeiner.com..
22 March '18..

The Palestinian president publicly called the American ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a “son of a dog” — and The New York Times ignored it.

Readers relying on the print New York Times for their news would have found no mention of the insult, which the Times ignored, suppressed, censored, or subjected to a kind of news blackout.

Even for the online, web-only Times, where there are no space constraints or extra costs of paper, ink, or delivery, the newspaper didn’t cover the story with any staff reporters or even “special to the Times” exclusive freelancers. Instead it relied on wire service accounts — one from The Associated Press and another from Reuters.

Speaking of dogs, there may be a canine explanation for the lack of coverage. Maybe the editors see it as what in the newspaper business is known as a “dog bites man” story — something that happens so often that it isn’t particularly newsworthy, as opposed to a “man bites dog” story, which is rare enough that it merits attention.

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Friday, March 23, 2018

Providing Swedish meatballs for Palestinian terrorists? - by Stephen M. Flatow

In another form of Israel-bashing, the foreign minister of Sweden attempts to justify huge amounts of aid to the Palestinian Authority by saying the money is needed to feed “starving Palestinian children.” In reality, some of the money gets channeled for terror operations, while the kids have enough on their plates.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
22 March '18..

Have you ever read a news report about a Palestinian Arab who starved to death? Even one? Of course not, because it never happens. Yet the foreign minister of Sweden is now claiming that the Palestinian Authority must provide salaries to terrorists and their families because otherwise, they will “starve.”

Sweden, which was the first country in the European Union to recognize the P.A.-occupied territories as the “State of Palestine,” has given the Palestinians more than $700 million in aid since 1993. The Swedes are now in the middle of handing out another five-year, $183 million grant package to them.

In an interview by the Swedish Jewish newspaper “Judisk Krönika” (Jewish Chronicle) on March 19, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström was asked how she felt about Swedish tax dollars contributing to the P.A.’s policy of providing salaries to imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists. The foreign minister squirmed.

“Are people supposed to starve to death or what? What are these families supposed to do if they don’t receive money?” she replied, according to a translation provided by the Swedish-born journalist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein.

That’s an interesting propaganda tactic. Pretend that what your opponent advocates will result in the death of innocent people.

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The PLO (and its Chairman) is an enemy of the state of Israel and the Jewish people - by Vic Rosenthal

...We have gotten used to cooperating with the PA because we believe it keeps a lid on terrorism, but what that means is that we are allowing ourselves to be extorted by blackmail and threats. And regardless of our subservience, terrorism continues and grows over time, since we never defeat our enemy. We don’t have a time machine that would enable someone to snatch the pen out of Rabin’s hand, but recognizing the seriousness of the mistake we made is the first step to fixing it.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
23 March '18..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2018/03/the-death-factory/

Israel and the Jewish people have no enemy more vile than the PLO and its dominant faction, Fatah.

The PLO was founded in 1964 by the Arab league as a “Palestinian” organization whose goal was the “liberation of Palestine through armed struggle.” In 1969 it was taken over by Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, which has controlled it ever since. In 1993-4, the Oslo agreements between Israel and the PLO created the Palestinian Authority (PA), which rules the areas in which 95% or more of the Arabs of Judea and Samaria live. The PA is run by the PLO (despite the victory by Hamas in the last PA election, held in 2006) and its Chairman is Mahmoud Abbas, who is also the head of the PLO and of Fatah.

Probably more Israeli Jews have been murdered by the PLO and its factions than any other terrorist group, including Hamas and Hezbollah. The PLO has gone out of its way to kill Jewish civilians and especially children, as it did in the Moshav Avivim school bus massacre (very interesting link), the Ma’alot massacre, and the Bus of Blood incident (also called the Coastal Road massacre). Here is a list of PLO “operations” until 2004. There have been plenty more since.

In the early 1990s the PLO was isolated in its exile in Tunis and other places, with few recent terrorist atrocities to its “credit” (the ugly Achille Lauro hijacking in 1985 was an exception). But in 1993, the so-called “architects of Oslo” – Yossi Beilin, Yair Hirschfeld, Ron Pundak, Uri Savir, and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres – negotiated an agreement with the PLO which recognized it as the legitimate representative of the “Palestinian people,” and brought PLO terrorists back to Israel to form the PA. Here is how historian Efraim Karsh described the result:

For Israel, it has been the starkest strategic blunder in its history, establishing an ineradicable terror entity on its doorstep, deepening its internal cleavages, destabilizing its political system, and weakening its international standing. For the West Bank [sic] and Gaza Palestinians, it has brought subjugation to the corrupt and repressive PLO and Hamas regimes, which reversed the hesitant advent of civil society in these territories, shattered their socioeconomic wellbeing, and made the prospects of peace and reconciliation with Israel ever more remote.

In their naiveté and delusive wishful thinking, the “architects” believed Arafat’s assurances that he had renounced terrorism and would change the PLO Covenant to delete those articles calling for the violent destruction of the Jewish state. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had his doubts, but could not oppose the fait accompli from the start without being seen as “against peace,” and he soon came under massive pressure from US President Clinton to make a deal.

Arafat immediately began his double game of talking peace in English to the international community and inciting violence in Arabic to his people. Karsh notes,

The next eleven years until Arafat’s death on November 11, 2004, offered a recapitulation, over and over again, of the same story. In addressing Israeli or Western audiences, the PLO chairman (and his erstwhile henchmen) would laud the “peace” signed with “my partner Yitzhak Rabin.” To his Palestinian constituents, he depicted the accords as transient arrangements required by the needs of the moment. He made constant allusion to the “phased strategy” and the Treaty of Hudaibiya—signed by Muhammad with the people of Mecca in 628, only to be disavowed a couple of years later when the situation shifted in the prophet’s favor—and insisted on the “right of return,” the standard Palestinian/Arab euphemism for Israel’s destruction through demographic subversion.

The supposedly renounced terrorism continued, with Arafat secretly providing funds to terror operatives and even cooperating with Hamas (the one thing they seem to be able to agree upon is the value of killing Jews). After the failure of the Camp David and Taba talks in 2000-1, Arafat sparked the vicious Second Intifada in which the PLO and Hamas together murdered more than 1000 Israeli Jews, mostly civilians, and in which more than 3000 Palestinian Arabs lost their lives.

Surprise? The BBC’s partisan coverage of the Ahed Tamimi case continues - by Hadar Sela

...The BBC’s repeated promotion of partisan NGOs that have been campaigning on this case once again highlights the fact that the corporation which is committed to providing its audiences with “accurate and impartial news […] of the highest editorial standards” has in this case chosen to abandon impartiality and accuracy – and instead lend its voice and outreach to one-sided promotion of a blatantly political campaign.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
22 March '18..

On March 21st the BBC News website published a report billed “Palestinian slap video teen gets jail term”. That framing of the story was reinforced in two items of related content offered to audiences under the headings “Was slap terrorism?” and “Spotlight on slap video teen”.

The same messaging was further reinforced in the report’s headline – “Ahed Tamimi: Palestinian slap video teen gets eight months in plea deal” – and in the caption to the same video offered as related content (a highly problematic report by the BBC’s Middle East editor dating from January 31st) which was embedded at the top of the article: “Is a slap terrorism?”.

Clearly the intention was to lead BBC audiences towards the understanding that this story is about a “Palestinian teen” who got a “jail term” for a “slap” deemed “terrorism” even before they had read one word of the report.

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