For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.
Note: 1980 years before the creation in 1965 of the “Palestinian people,” Judean King Herod built a palace fortress at Herodium, south of Jerusalem. There are no “Palestinian antiquities” at Herodium or anywhere in the land of Israel, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Official PA TV newsreader: "The occupation authorities continue to falsify and steal Palestinian antiquities at the archaeological site at the Herodium fortress..."
Official PA TV reporter: "The occupation tries to exploit the heritage sites for the benefit of the Israeli narrative: the existence of Jewish history on the land of Palestine. Therefore it is intentionally falsifying the facts, searching for false antiquities in this land, and striving to erase the Arab landmarks that contradict its narrative. Israeli attempts to falsify [the land's] Palestinian character [continue] at this important archaeological site."
[Official PA TV News, Sept. 19, 2018]
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.
...The disparity in moral accountability, in which Muslims in the region are routinely denied moral agency, by journalists covering the Middle East not only suggests a troubling degree of liberal racism, but also serves to egregiously distort the West’s understanding of the conflict.
Adam Levick..
CiF Watch..
29 October '13..
Just for a moment, imagine if the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) aired a show with the following exchange between a young Jewish Israeli girl and a reporter:
Israeli TV reporter: “Let’s meet this girl here in the park who wants to recite a short poem.”
Young Israeli girl: “I do not fear the rifle because Muslim throngs are in delusion and ignorant herds.Jerusalem is my land, Jerusalem is my honorOh, you Muslims who murdered pious JewsOh, you Muslims who were brought up on spilling bloodYou Muslims have been condemned to humiliation and hardship.Oh Sons of Allah, oh most evil among creationsOh barbaric monkeys, wretched pigsJerusalem vomits from within it your Muslim impurityAnd Jerusalem, you Muslims who are filth, is clean and pure.I do not fear your barbarity.
Do we really even have to wonder what kind of reaction with ensue if it this fictional account was real? Such an ugly expression of hate towards Muslims would be justly criticized as state sanctioned racism – and an act of incitement against Palestinians - in newspaper editorials in Jerusalem, London and New York.
Well, here is real clip from a program on Palestinian Authority TV (mirroring the faux exchange above) which was broadcast on July 3, 2013, and which hasn’t been covered by the Guardian or other liberal broadsheets:
Of course, that highly disturbing exchange represents Just one example of state sanctioned antisemitism out of literally hundreds available at the site of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).
(Continue) 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. Check-it out! .
Palwatch..
Palestinian Media Watch..
29 August '13..
Another one of those interesting items that rarely makes the mainstream media but is part of the constant incitement and demonization of Israel via official Palestinian Authority media. Click below for the PMW Bulletin - PA libel: Israel spreads drugs to harm Palestinians. Y.
Issam Jwehan, Director of the NGO Al-Maqdese:
"The occupation controls the land and tries to control the [Arab] residents of Jerusalem. One of the weapons it uses to Judaize Jerusalem is drugs."
[Official Palestinian Authority TV, June 26, 2013]
Note: The NGO Al- Maqdese for Society Development lists on its website the organization's "Donors and Partners", among them: UNDP (United Nations Development Program), UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), EU, France, Spain, Italy, the American organization National Endowment for Democracy, Norwegian People's Aid, Polish Aid, and Save the Children -- Sweden.
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWV49CbGDac
See More at PMW Bulletins - PA libel: Israel spreads drugs to harm Palestinians 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. Check-it out! .
Attacking PMW for exposing hatred, and not the PA for promoting hatred, is a failure that will postpone peace for another generation.
Nan Jacques-Zilberdik..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
26 May '13..
For two months, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide has been questioned by his parliament’s Scrutiny Committee because the Foreign Ministry has been giving false information to parliament since 2011. The Foreign Ministry had denied that the Palestinian Authority pays high monthly salaries to security prisoners, among them convicted terrorists. Palestinian Media Watch, where I am a senior analyst, exposed these PA salaries already in 2011. These salaries are paid from the PA’s general budget, which is funded in part by Norway and other international donors.
At the time, Norway’s Foreign Ministry refused to accept PMW’s reports, basing itself on false data supplied by the PA. Had the ministry seriously studied our reports, Norway would have learned in 2011 that the PA has a special program to give salaries to prisoners, including those convicted of multiple murders.
Finally, two months ago Eide acknowledged that the information the Foreign Ministry had been giving to parliament for two years was false. However, Eide’s public response since then has been a great disappointment.
In an interview to the Norwegian newspaper Dagen, he did not criticize the PA for lying to Norway, nor did he condemn it for using donor money to pay salaries to convicted terrorists. He did not challenge the PA’s ethical foundations as supporters and glorifiers of terrorists and murderers, nor did he explain his ministry’s so-called “imprecise” statements to parliament.
Instead, Minister Eide criticized the research institute where I work, saying that PMW is “against the two-state solution” and “considerably to the right of the Israeli government.”
These claims have no relevance to the PA’s transfer of Norwegian money to terrorists, and are also groundless. Instead of acknowledging that PMW correctly exposed the PA’s unethical behavior and unethical use of Norwegian funding, he chose to attack us, the research institute that was the messenger.
“One day after Iranian Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi was condemned internationally for saying that Jews and their Talmud are responsible for international drug trafficking, no less than five articles in the official PA daily cited different Palestinian Authority officials accusing Israel of having a policy to disseminate drugs among Palestinian youth.
The Governor of Jericho said that Israel “is encouraging and turning a blind eye to [drug] dealers and their efforts to distribute drugs, through a systematic policy to destroy Palestinian society, targeting the youth.”
The District Governor of Jenin said Israel “seeks to harm the Palestinian people and to destroy it and its national enterprise [through drugs] as a continuation of its Zionist enterprise.”
PMW reported that PYALARA listed the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office, Save the Children UK and Cordaid as funders. Currently, all that remains on the donor page is this sentence:
"PYALARA has received generous grants from private and public sources both domestic and international ... Special sponsors include:"
These words are now followed by a blank page as the names of all the "special donors" have been removed.
PA TV live broadcast from Ramallah: 2012 General Convention of the Palestinian Journalists' Association
Mahmoud Ismail, member of the PLO Executive Committee: "I hope that this election assembly of media people will inaugurate a wise Palestinian media enterprise, and our legacy will remain the stone, the rifle, and free speech; we will make alternating use of these, whenever and however we wish."
[PA TV (Fatah), March 9, 2012]
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 .
Candidly Speaking: PA texts glorifying terror beg question of whether genuine peace process was ever intended?
Isi Leibler..
Candidly Speaking/JPost..
31 January '12..
We are told, day after day, that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a genuine moderate committed to achieving a peace settlement with Israel. In addition to the international community, even some Israelis – admittedly a dwindling minority – also chant this mantra.
Abbas and his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, bolster this theme by uttering soothing statements in English, endorsing peace to the gullible international community. Yet they speak with forked tongues because in Arabic, to their own people, they deny Israel’s right to exist and promote vicious hatred against Jews.
They also claim to have reneged violence. But the PA never conceded that terrorism was immoral. They simply concluded that having failed to achieve their objectives by violence, their goals could best be promoted by temporarily suspending terrorism in order to gain Western support.
Abbas made it clear that he “had the honor of firing the first shot in 1965” and was only opposed to terrorist attacks “at this time” for tactical reasons and that “in the future things may change.”
Yet, even within this framework, Fatah has still succeeded in killing more Israelis than Hamas.
The true objectives of the PA are reflected in the poisonous hatred against Jews and Israel inculcated into their people through the broad range of institutions they control, permeating every level of society– from kindergarten upwards.
This can be traced to the very inception of the Oslo Accords. Before that, the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis, while far from ideal, was certainly better than it is now; current polls indicate that 84 percent of Palestinians endorse the murder of Israelis.
Hamas leader Haniyeh: Armed resistance is the path, Palestine is from the sea to the river
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh:
"We say today, explicitly, so it cannot be explained otherwise, that the armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel] from the blessed land of Palestine. The Hamas movement will lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine - all of Palestine, Allah willing. Allah Akbar and praise Allah. We say with transparency and in a clear manner, that Palestinian reconciliation - and all sides must know this - cannot come at the expense of [our] principles, at the expense of the resistance. These principles are absolute and cannot be disputed: Palestine - all of Palestine - is from the sea to the river. We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine. The involvement of Hamas at any stage with the interim objective of liberation of [only[ Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem, does not replace its strategic view concerning Palestine and the land of Palestine."
[Al-Aqsa (Hamas), Dec. 14, 2011]
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We already responded to a Dec. 11th straight news story by Phoebe Greenwood, the Guardian’s new Israel correspondent, which implicitly questioned the validity of evidence consistently offered by Palestinian Media Watch of incitement in Palestinian schools.
However, her report was not a polemic, and thus, by merely citing Palestinians who questioned PMW’s work, protected her from charges that she similarly possessed such doubts.
The wonderful thing about Twitter, however, is that it often provides a glimpse into the political views of correspondents who otherwise hide their ideological orientation behind rhetorical obfuscation.
As such, a recent Tweet confirms that Greenwood indeed doubts whether such incitement permeates Palestinian schools and textbooks.
Her mention of Moshe Ya’alon is likely a reference to a talk given the other night, which I attended (and perhaps Greenwood, too), where the Vice Premier noted Palestinian incitement as one of the obstacles to peace.
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One island of stability in a sea of change has been the continuous, vicious incitement to hate and murder Israelis and Jews that issues from every mouthpiece — schools, media, mosques, summer camps, textbooks, etc. — of the PLO (and I am not even talking about Hamas). Dore Gold tells us,
Formally, there are many clauses on incitement throughout the Oslo Agreements, especially the 1995 Interim Agreement. The parties are legally bound to abstain from incitement and hostile propaganda. They were supposed to foster “mutual understanding and tolerance.” The first phase of the 2003 Roadmap calls on “all Palestinian institutions to end incitement against Israel.” But in practice many of these clauses were dormant. Israeli governments put the greatest attention to the most politically explosive issues like borders and security. The most senior officials in the Prime Minister’s office were involved in those committees and not in the incitement committee. There were those who undoubtedly felt that if Israel complained about incitement, it would be perceived that it was looking for an excuse to get out of the peace process and not make any concessions.
But it ought to be a matter of the highest priority. “After all,” Gold asks, “what prepares a Palestinian terrorist to slit the throats of Israeli children and kill their parents in cold blood?”
Arafat and Abbas both promised to end it, and Abbas even announced that he had, but neither did. Although the PLO can make concessions to Israel when it sees an advantage, this seems to be something they will never concede, either because Palestinian honor demands it, or because indoctrinating the youth to create the next generation of murderers is too important.
The contrast between Israel’s ‘educating for peace‘ by replacing Zionist history with special ‘coexistence’ curricula, and the PA’s glorification of the worst terrorists has been stark.
Ever since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, Americans and Israelis who were trying to make peace in the Middle East have had one insoluble problem: how to explain the fact that Palestinian leaders say one thing to the Western media and quite another to their own people in Arabic. The answer for the peace processers was to either ignore or rationalize the consistent incitement and hatred coming from Palestinian sources lest the truth about their intentions dampen enthusiasm for Israeli concessions or for pressure on the Jewish state to surrender territory.
A counterweight to this inclination to deny the truth about the Palestinians has come from the work of Palestine Media Watch, an organization that was founded in 1996 and since then has produced translations of Arab print and broadcast media. PMW has just published a new book titled Deception: Betraying the Peace Process that is filled with translated quotes of Palestinians from 2010 to 2011. The cumulative effect of the depth of the hatred and delegitimization for Jews and Israel that is mainstream opinion among Palestinians is devastating. But, as an article about the topic in today’s New York Times demonstrates, it is also something many Americans and Israelis have trouble dealing with.
The Palestinian Authority said last week to the British daily The Guardian that US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's critique of the PA was based on information he quoted from Palestinian Media Watch's website.
To clarify PMW findings, and what was correct and incorrect in Gingrich's remarks, PMW wrote an op-ed that was published in The Jerusalem Post, December16, 2011 :
The American congressional candidates were correct in criticizing the PA for promoting terror
US presidential candidate and the former speaker of US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich said this week that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize Israel's right to exist and that Palestinian schoolbooks teach children to become terrorists. Gingrich cited what he said were PA sources to back up his remarks.
However, the PA has rejected his statements as "groundless."
According to the British daily The Guardian: "Palestinian officials said Gingrich's allegations were based substantially on material produced by an Israeli organization, Palestinian Media Watch, which has published a long list of entries on its website (palwatch.org) under the heading 'Promoting Violence for Children.' An article [on PMW's website] from 2007 describes Palestinian textbooks paid for with US aid money that deny Israel's right to exist.
"But Xavier Abu Eid, a senior adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the website and Gingrich's allegations were groundless." (December 11, 2011)
Certainly the PA's rejection of the US candidate was expected, as his charges contradict what the PA has been telling Western countries for years.
This is not merely an irrelevant distraction and rhetoric of a presidential campaign. It is these issues - PA non-recognition of Israel and its support of terror - that are at the heart of the peace process and constitute a major impediment to its success. Therefore, it is critical to determine who is correct - Gingrich or the PA.
As part of this rewriting of history, a regular columnist on religious affairs in the official PA daily recently made the false claim that the Jews changed the original Arabic names of places in Israel into Hebrew names. Is'haq Feleifel cited six cities that he said originally had Arabic names, when in fact all of those names appear in the Hebrew Bible long before Arabic names were given:
Jerusalem, capital of the nation of Israel/Judea (1000 BCE - 70 CE), mentioned 670 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Joshua 10:1; Hebron, first capital of the tribe of Judah, mentioned 73 times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Genesis 13:18; Atarot, mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Numbers 32:3; Shechem, capital of Israel after the nation divided [922 BCE], mentioned 64 times in the Hebrew Bible (including a small number of references to two people of that name). First reference: Genesis 33:18; Ashkelon, a Philistine city, mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. First reference: Judges 1:18
The sixth city he mentioned, Tel Aviv, is also mentioned in the Bible [Ezekiel 3:15] as a location in Babylon where Jews settled after being exiled from Judea in 586 BCE. That name is the source for today's Tel Aviv. All these Biblical names predate by many years the names the PA religion teacher claims are the original Arabic names.
The following is from the article by the official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel:
"The great and exalted Allah commanded the angel Gabriel to place Muhammad upon the riding beast [named] Al-Buraq, which was a cross between horse and donkey. The night journey was both physical and spiritual... Once he [Muhammad] reached the Al-Aqsa Mosque, (PMW note: the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was not yet built in the time of Muhammad. The "night journey" mentioned in the Quran is dated to 621 CE. The mosque was built on the Temple Mount by the son of Ummayad Caliph Abd Al-Malik 84 years later in 705 CE.) the angel Gabriel removed Muhammad from upon Al-Buraq's back, and then he tied the beast to the Al-Buraq rock, which was called the 'Al-Buraq Wall'. The Jews changed its name to the 'Wailing Wall', because the Jews are always trying to change Arabic names into Hebrew names, especially when it comes to prayer sites or names of towns and villages. For example, they call Al-Quds 'Jerusalem'; Al-Khalil [they call] 'Hebron'; Atara - 'Atarot, Nablus - 'Shechem', Tel Al-Rabi'a - 'Tel Aviv'(PMW note: 'Rabi'a' is the Arabic translation of the Hebrew word 'aviv', meaning 'spring'); Askelan - Ashkelon. There is not enough room to list all the names which have been replaced with false names. Even the 'Torah' falsified, changed and forged; this is the way of the Jews - they always try to change the real names to other, false names, in order to erase the [historical] facts." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 1, 2011]
In a second article fabricating an ancient Palestinian history, PA columnist Feleifel claimed that Palestinian history in the land of Israel dates back to the Biblical period, which is historically incorrect. He also wrote that Allah predetermined "Arab and Muslim ownership of Palestine" - meaning Islamic ownership of Israel.
The following is from the second article by the official PA daily's columnist on religious affairs, Is'haq Feleifel:
"The book I wrote a year ago is entitled Palestine Belongs to the Arabs and Muslims, According to the Testimony of the Sovereign of the Universe. This is a Quranic study based on the 'Night Journey' chapter, in which I proved the Arab and Muslim ownership of Palestine and reviewed Palestinian history since the period of the Canaanites, via the Edomites, Emorites, Midianites, Amalekites, Ibrahim bin Azar [the biblical Abraham] and Al-Khader [a reference to the prophet Elijah] in the Islamic sources." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 8, 2011]
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In front of Abbas: All of Israel depicted as "my [Palestinian] land"
Contrary to the PA leadership's claim that they recognize Israel's existence, their controlled TV and cultural events continue to reinforce the message of non-recognition of Israel, by their ongoing depiction all of Israel as "Palestine."
This week a PA TV program for teenagers included a short video clip which opened with the words across the screen: "Palestine: We will return one day to our home," and then followed with a series of pictures of cities and regions in Israel, with the names on the screen, including: Tel Aviv, Haifa, Galilee, Negev, Caesarea, Acre, and Jerusalem. PA TV also showed a picture of Masada but incorrectly labeled it "Jericho mountains."
The picture of the Galilee, though not labeled, was of the ancient Synagogue in Capernaum. The Christian Bible cites the Capernaum Synagogue as a place where Jesus taught on the Sabbath. [Luke 4:31-37]
After the showing of the Israeli cities and regions, the PA TV host said:
"This [video] is our gift to Palestine and to all the Palestinians inside and outside, and throughout the world."
[PA TV (Fatah), April 11, 2011]
At a recent Fatah event in the presence of Mahmoud Abbas and many other senior PA officials, a Palestinian singer defined Palestinian land that "I am returning to" as spanning from Rosh Hanikra, in Israel's north, to Rafah in the Gaza Strip in the South, and from Haifa, on Israel's Western coast to Beit Shean Israel's Eastern border.
The following are the words of the song at the Fatah event:
"We commit and promise to stand behind you, oh Mahmoud Abbas, until Judgment Day. I am returning to you, the purest land, oh land of the free. No matter how long the nights of exile, I am returning to you, oh land. From Rafah to Rosh Hanikra (northern Israel) our coast, and Beit Shean (Israeli city). Above your soil, oh my land, is a picture of Garden of Eden. From Rafah to Rosh Hanikra our coast, and Beit Shean. Above your soil, oh my land, is a picture of Garden of Eden. From Rafah to Rosh Hanikra, north and south, are the picture's borders. From Haifa (Israeli city) and Tantura to the [Jordan] valley (i.e., all of Israel). I am returning to you, the purest land, oh land of the free." [PA TV (Fatah), Feb. 27, 2011]
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PMW's interview with Israeli Channel 10 News crew.
Israeli TV channel 10 did an in depth story on PMW and its importance internationally.
The following is the transcript of Israeli TV news.
Israeli TV Host: "The internet plays an important role maybe the most critical, in the political information war. Our most effective weapon is actually broadcasts from the other side: The incitement on PA TV. The people who monitor these broadcasts, 24 hours a day, upload to the web, translate to different languages, and send to the whole world so everyone can see what's happening -- it's a completely private organization called Palestinian Media Watch. Our reporter accompanied the people who put themselves on the front lines of the information war on behalf of the whole country -- mostly because they feel no one else is doing this."
For all those who pay American taxes, did you know that you are funding terrorism?
Now before you stop reading and assume this is some right-wing polemic, please hear me out. According to the folks at Palestinian Media Watch, (I know — two hat tips in a row, but they really are good,) the Palestinian Authority continues to award cash prizes for the families of terrorists.
In the period prior to the murders of Ruth and Udi Fogel and their three children in the Israeli town Itamar, the Palestinian Authority continued to encourage terror by glorifying terrorists as heroes and role models and through calls for violence. In addition, in an act that sent a clear message of support for terror, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas awarded $2000 to the family of a terrorist who attacked and tried to kill Israeli soldiers – just 2 months ago.
Now it’s bad enough that Abbas and his thugs are sending checks to reward terrorism, but just think for a moment about where that $2,000 check came from. The Palestinian Authority has almost no revenue. They are completely dependent on hundreds of millions of dollars delivered by the U.S. and other foreign countries. So a portion of your tax dollars is funding the same people who are handing out checks to terrorists and their families.
So as we RIGHT NOW cry rivers of tears for the murdered family from Itamar, I can only imagine how long will it take before we hear that the terrorists have deposited YOUR money as an expression of appreciation from the PA. Yes, the same PA that condemns terrorism in front of the news cameras turns around and pays for it when the cameras are turned off.
And while we are on that note, why are the cameras turned off? Can it be that no one in the media is aware of what’s going on? I mean I hardly did a comprehensive investigation right now. I merely got an e-mail from PMW that lays out the facts. Where does PMW get their information from?
From the Palestinian Authority’s own newspapers and television shows.
Are the same journalists who report on every brick used to build every house out here in the “territories” unfamiliar with how to find this same information? Is reading the official PA daily newspaper really outside the skill set of the highly paid correspondents from the Western Media? Do they know how to do a Google search?
Or do they just not care?
What do you think?
And more importantly, what are you going to do about it?
Here’s a start: Demand that your representatives in Congress vote to stop sending your money to the PA while the PA uses it to thank terrorists.
And while you’re at it, ask the media you read why they have not reported that the US funded PA is giving out checks to terrorists.
Yarden Frankl is an avid blogger, biker and runner, though not necessarily at the same time or in that order. He produces short films, long-term media analyses, and other efforts related to media bias for HonestReporting as their Special Media Projects Manager. Yarden’s blog, Crossing The Yarden, can be read at http://www.crossingtheyarden.com. He currently lives in Neve Daniel, Israel with his family, bikes, and dog.
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Itamar Marcus/Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)
08 March '11
The Al-Amari Palestinian youth center has announced a football tournament for youth to be held later this week, named after the first Palestinian female suicide bomber Wafa Idris.
The Al-Amari youth center's website displays its logo with UNRWA's name in the center. On the home page, just below the logo and bordered in red, is the announcement of the Wafa Idris tournament.
[http://www.ammariclub.com/mainPage2.aspx ]
(After publication of this item UNRWA spokesman called PMW and insisted that they are no longer involved in this youth center and not responsible for the naming of the event after the terrorist.)
Wafa Idris was the first Palestinian female suicide bomber. She blew herself up in Jerusalem, killing one and injuring more than 150 on Jan. 27, 2002. As a volunteer for the Palestinian Red Crescent, she was able to bypass Israeli security and enter Jerusalem in a Palestinian ambulance. Since her bombing, Israel has been forced to delay Palestinian ambulances entering Jerusalem at security check points.
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Palestinian Media Watch has a round-up of anti-Obama and anti-American material from the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the wake of the U.S. veto of a one-sided anti-Israel UN resolution. The U.S. government had made clear that it would vote in favor of a resolution condemning Israel for building on existing settlements in the West Bank if it also included some language criticizing terrorism and the behavior of both sides.
Two quotes are particularly interesting. One is from Hafez Barghouti, editor of the official PA newspaper, al-Hayat al-Jadida:
"We understand very well that the protests and revolutions blazing in the Arab countries have economic and social roots, and that they are related to corruption and social injustice. However, this is a result of police states which enforced oppression, first and foremost for the sake of their ties with the Americans. Every corrupt Arab has a foreign or Israeli partner, and the most corrupt and the richest in Egypt have partners in Israel in the field of gas and the like. Therefore, the rebellion against oppression and corruption must be directed towards the godfathers of the thieves of natural resources and the oppressors of nations, not only against their agents."
There is, of course, a bit of remarkable humor in this statement, “Every corrupt Arab has a foreign or Israeli partner.” After all, the corrupt leaders of the PA have plenty of such partners. Of course, the PA never gives thanks for the partners who have provided it with billions of dollars of aid, despite its consistent failure to live up to its commitments. The Palestinians, you see, are eternal victims and so are entitled to unlimited support. And, of course, “corrupt” PA leaders have stolen a remarkable amount of that money.
What Barghouti is saying, though, is that the main fire of the Arab upheavals should be directed against America and Israel as—in language basically borrowed from historical antisemitism—“the oppressors of nations.”
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in recent days has made contradictory statements concerning violence and war against Israel.To the English speaking audience Abbas said he would never turn to violence; in Arabic he said he would join Arab states in a war against Israel: Abbas to Western audience:
"'I am committed to peace, but not forever,' Mr. Abbas said. 'I don't mean I will turn to violence - never. In my life, I will never do it. But I cannot stay in my office forever doing nothing.'"
Abbas to Arab audience:
"I have said more than once that if the Arabs want war - we are with them."
Abbas made the statementagainst violence in an interview with Bernard Avishai writing for the New York Times Magazine. The statement was intended for an international audience and reported in the New York Times on January 27, 2011. Abbas made the second statementnot ruling out war in a meeting with Egyptian and other Arab journalists. This statement was meant for an Arab audience and reported in the official Palestinian Authority dailyAl-Hayat Al-Jadidaon January 24, 2011. Abbas stressed that he is against violence now because the Palestinians are unable and because the international community opposes it. He did not denounce violence as a tool:
"We do not wish to turn to armed struggle, because our [lack of] capabilities and the international atmosphere do not allow for it."
PA leaders' depicting non-violence against Israel as a necessary current strategy was exemplified recently during the 2010 peace talks. PA leaders repeatedly used apologetic language when explaining the rationale behind the non-violence to Palestinians.
I visited Hevron in November 2000 after the outbreak of the Rosh Hashanah War to see what could be done to assist in the face of the growing daily attacks on the community. After returning to work for the community in the summer of 2001, a bond and a love was forged that grows to this day. My wife Melody and I merited to be married at Ma'arat HaMachpela and now host visitors from throughout the world every Shabbat as well as during the week. Our goal, "Time to come Home!"
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