Surprise? Palestinian Authority rewrites Hans Christian Andersen's "It's Quite True" - the making of a Corona fairy tale - by PMW

PA rewrites Hans Christian Andersen - It’s Quite True - How the PA turned one spit on the ground into a deliberate Israeli plot to infect Palestinians with Coronavirus and “get rid” of all Palestinians

Nan Jacques Zilberdik and Itamar Marcus..
Palestinian Media Watch..
02 April '20..

               The making of a Corona fairy tale

Once upon a time there was an Israeli soldier who spat. He didn’t spit on a door handle. He didn’t spit on a home. He just spat on the ground near a car.

How the PA turned one spit into a grotesque Israeli plan to infect and get rid of Palestinians, is reminiscent of how one feather turned into five hens in Hans Christian Andersen’s It’s Quite True.

In the fairy tale a hen plucks out one of her feathers and jokingly says that the more she plucks the more beautiful she will be. Another hen tells her friend that the first hen plans to pluck out all her feathers to be more beautiful to catch the rooster. The story is retold and exaggerated by hens, owls, and pigeons until the story comes back to the first hen who doesn’t recognize it is about her since the story now is of five hens who plucked themselves naked, and pecked at each other until they all bled to death. The first hen is shocked and condemns the feather plucking hens.

Seeing how the PA turned that one soldier’s spit into a major Israeli conspiracy to infect Palestinians with Coronavirus, one could almost imagine that the PA was inspired by the famous fairy tale.

Here’s PMW’s presentation of the Palestinian version:

Once upon a time, one Israeli soldier on patrol spat on the ground near a car. The Palestinian Authority wanted to alert Palestinians and rushed to let everyone know in their daily paper: “A few days ago, dozens of occupation soldiers spit on cars of [Palestinian] residents and the door handles of the homes.”

The more the writer wrote, the more details just popped into his head: “Soldiers were seen spitting everywhere in a number of Hebron’s neighborhoods.”


(Continue to Full Story)

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. 

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Why the arrest of this Palestinian actually matters - by Stephen M. Flatow

Hussam Khader will languish in a prison cell because he is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Palestinian Authority.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
10 March '20..

You probably have never heard the name Hussam Khader. But you should. Because what’s happening to him has extremely important ramifications for Israel and for Middle East peace.

Khader, 59, is a leader of Fatah (the main component of the PLO) and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The council was established as part of the 1993 Oslo accords. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin understood that transforming Palestinian Arab society from authoritarianism to democracy was one of the most crucial ingredients for a durable and meaningful peace. So Israel insisted that the Oslo agreement include the establishment of a number of democratic agencies and mechanisms, including a democratically elected legislative council.

Many pundits have strongly criticized the notion that the United States should pursue “regime change” around the world. One can argue that America doesn’t have the resources for such a mission; however, the concept behind “regime change” is sound, and always was. The concept is based on the fact that democracies almost never make war against fellow democracies. Nearly every major war you can think of in modern times was started by a dictator.

Written off by many as just another military man, Rabin recognized that the process of overhauling Palestinian Arab society would be complicated and take a long time. But he also knew that the only way to permit the Palestinian Authority to run its own regime just a few miles from major Israeli cities was to be sure that it would not become yet another aggressive authoritarian entity.

Twenty-seven years have now passed since Rabin began the Oslo experiment. Twenty-seven years is enough time to see the results of the experiment. After 27 years, there should be serious evidence as to whether the P.A. has made meaningful progress towards democratization and entitlement to statehood.

Which brings us back to Palestinian Arab legislator Hussam Khader. Last week, members of the P.A.’s official Preventive Security Services burst into Khader’s home in Nablus (Shechem) in the middle of the night and dragged him off to prison. His crime? He posted a comment on Facebook in which he criticized P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas for having said that striking Palestinian physicians who are seeking a salary increase are “despicable.”

I have no sympathy for Hussam Khader. He is a veteran terrorist who has served time in Israeli prisons. But his arrest tells us a lot about the nature of the Palestinian Authority.

(Continue to Full Column)

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. 

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Who Might Ask Whether It's Misguided to Fight for Jewish Rights?

...Indeed, who is the only source Rudoren can produce to justify the headline about the Law Center’s efforts being “misguided?” The Israeli attorney who had been defending the Palestinian Authority in cases relating to its financial support for terrorists described her as a “nuisance.” I’m sure his clients and others who believe those who commit terrorism against Jewish Americans and Israelis feel the same way. But it’s hard to see why anyone else would view her activities in that same light.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
25 January '15..

Lawfare is the term for the practice of employing legal proceedings to wage a kind of war on a country or cause. For the most part, the State of Israel has been on the receiving end of this effort as non-governmental organizations and others purporting to support the cause of human rights have attempted to delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and to self-defense with specious efforts to arraign before the bar of justice. But not everybody in Israel believes the best way to counter these attacks is to play defense or simply ignore it. Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner founded Shurat HaDin—the Israel Law Center in 2004 to use the law to not only work for the rights of Jewish victims of terrorism but also to make the terrorists, state sponsors, and enablers in the business world pay for their crimes. For this she was rewarded with an article profiling her activities in yesterday’s New York Times that posed the question in its headline as to whether her work was “misguided,” a clear indication of the opinion of the paper’s editors. But that verdict can only be sustained if you believe those who support terrorism deserve legal impunity.

The piece by Jodi Rudoren does provide us with yet another tortured food metaphor from the paper’s Jerusalem bureau chief. In describing her relentless efforts to keep probing legal foes for weaknesses and to adopt the best strategies, Darshan-Leitner made an analogy to baking challah for the Sabbath. Rudoren uses that one line to attempt to gain some insight on her subject’s career but it doesn’t work.

Even less convincing is Rudoren’s effort to put down Darshan-Leitner as either a worthless publicity hound/profiteer or an impediment to the peace process. Indeed, who is the only source Rudoren can produce to justify the headline about the Law Center’s efforts being “misguided?” The Israeli attorney who had been defending the Palestinian Authority in cases relating to its financial support for terrorists described her as a “nuisance.” I’m sure his clients and others who believe those who commit terrorism against Jewish Americans and Israelis feel the same way. But it’s hard to see why anyone else would view her activities in that same light.

Hmmm... Why Do Palestinians Want Both Statehood and ‘Occupation?’

...Just like Hamas, which rails against “occupation” while governing what is functionally a Palestinian state, Abbas clings to policies that keep the status quo in place while still railing against it. The reason is that although its leader is wrongly proclaimed by Washington as a champion of peace, he and his movement are as committed to Israel’s destruction as Hamas.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
28 December '14..

Today (Sunday), the Hamas terrorists who rule the Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza once again demonstrated their lack of concern for the subjects by denying a group of war orphans a chance to spend a week in Israel. Their reason: doing so would involve the teens visiting “occupied cities” and “settlements” and would undermine their effort to perpetuate a century-old war against Zionism. That Hamas would continue to rail against “occupation” while enjoying virtual sovereignty over part of the country is no contradiction. It actually dovetails nicely with the stand of their Fatah rivals who are seeking recognition of Palestinian statehood in the United Nations this week while also clinging to an “occupation” that allows them to avoid making peace.

Some will harp on the casual cruelty of denying a break to schoolchildren who have been harmed by war and who could use a chance to get out of the claustrophobic strip. But that would be a mistake. The key issue here is not the Islamist group’s insensitivity or even its reflexive hostility to Israel. Rather, it is the language used in explaining its decision to turn the bus with the 37 orphans back from the border:

“Security forces prevented 37 children of martyrs from entering the land occupied in 1948 for a suspicious visit to a number of settlements and occupied cities,” wrote Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Iyad Al-Bozom on Facebook Sunday. “This move came in order to safeguard our children’s education and protect them from the policy of normalization.”

Hamas’s harping on the occupied places that the orphans who were invited by Israel’s Kibbutz movement and two Israeli Arab towns is telling in that the places the kids were going to visit were not part of what the world is told is “occupied territory.” Indeed, every place on their itinerary was Israeli territory prior to the Six Day War in June 1967. For Hamas, “occupation” refers to any land on which the Jewish state may exist regardless of where its borders might be drawn. In this way, they make it clear that their “resistance” against “occupation” is not a protest about the West Bank or Jerusalem but a sign of their determination to wage war on Israel until it is destroyed. This renders moot if not absurd the conviction held by some on the Jewish left as well as the Obama administration that peace could still be obtained by an Israeli decision to trade land for peace.

Yet while this speaks volumes about the foolishness of those who believe Hamas is prepared to make peace, it should not be viewed as fundamentally different from the position of the Palestinian Authority as it tries to get the UN Security Council to vote to recognize their independence in all of the lands that Israel took during the Six Day War.

Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Is the Real Apartheid State

...Were Israel to ban Arabs from moving into homes they owned in West Jerusalem, it would prompt an international outcry and condemnations from the United States. But instead America condemns Jews who move into Arab neighborhoods and stays silent when Abbas seeks to treat those who sell to Jews as criminals. Instead of the Jewish home buying in Jerusalem being an obstacle to peace as Israel’s critics claim, it is the Arab attempt to criminalize selling to a Jew that best illustrates why peace is not yet possible.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
22 October '14..

In recent weeks, critics of Israel have been crying foul over the fact that Jews have moved into some apartments in East Jerusalem neighborhoods. The fact that the homes were legally purchased and that the new residents were merely attempting to reside in the country’s as-yet-undivided capital was seen as irrelevant since the presence of Jews in Arab-majority areas is considered to be an obstacle to a potential partition of the city should a peace agreement with the Palestinians ever be signed. But even if we were to concede that such moves do infuriate Arabs, surely no one, not even Israel’s most adamant opponents, would be comfortable with laws that banned the presence of Jews in parts of Jerusalem or anywhere else. Right? Wrong.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas reacted to the fact that Jews have bought homes from Palestinians in parts of Jerusalem by vowing to toughen existing PA laws that forbid such sales. Yes, that’s right. In “Palestine”—be it the existing PA or Hamas states or the future independent Palestinian state that Europe is so eager to recognize even without it having to make peace with Israel—it is against the law to sell land or a home to a Jew.

The question of whether Jews should move into majority Arab neighborhoods or towns is a question of judgment. Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected any peace deal that would give them an independent state and a share of Jerusalem since it would require them to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. It is possible to argue that the two communities are better off living separately. But voluntary separation is one thing, legal restrictions on the right of Jews to live in some areas is something very different.

After all, in the State of Israel, which is routinely and falsely accused of being an “apartheid state,” Arabs may live where they please. When some areas have tried to restrict sales of property to Arabs, Israel’s courts have ruled that this is inconsistent with the principles enunciated in the country’s basic laws. While Israel is not a perfect society and the Arab minority faces challenges that are often rooted in the century-old war over the land, the principle of equality before the law for all citizens is upheld.

But in “Palestine,” not only are there no courts or government to prevent individuals or groups from discriminating, but there it is the government itself that both promulgates and ruthlessly enforces such bias.

Nakba Day and Implausible Peace Plans

...Shavit’s reference to his opportunity zones as a “greenhouse” is telling. It should be remembered that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, wealthy American Jews bought the greenhouses built by Jewish settlers in order to give them to local Arabs who could then build their economy. But the greenhouses were destroyed in a paroxysm of Palestinian rage against anything connected to the Jews hours after the Israelis left. Much as Shavit might hope that Israeli withdrawals in the West Bank will produce a different result, there is no reason to think that any land abandoned to the Palestinians will not be converted to terrorist hotbeds, much as the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza soon became.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
15 May '14..

The market for new Middle East peace plans is pretty much like that available for diets. Just as there will never be a shortage of schemes offering you a way to lose weight by various means, the supply of “new” solutions to the conflict in the Middle East is a well that never runs dry. The latest entry to what is a growing genre comes from Israeli journalist and author Ari Shavit, whose book—My Promised Land—on the conflict got generally favorable reviews in the United States. Writing in the New Republic, Shavit offers what he claims is not only a new approach but a “plausible” one that seeks to learn from the mistakes made by the peace processors in the more than 20 years since the Oslo Accords.

Like that book (which was subjected to a thorough and withering takedown by the irreplaceable Ruth Wisse), whose superficial evenhandedness endeared it to both liberal Jewish friends of Israel and many who are not its friends, Shavit’s plan sounds smart and also avoids the clichés about Israelis needing to search their souls or having to be saved from themselves by wise foreigners. Indeed, there is much to recommend it. Shavit counsels that we should forget about what he calls “Old Peace” with its obsession with crafting grand agreements and promoting White House ceremonies and instead concentrate on “New Peace”—an idea that will focus on Palestinian economic development and reform as a way to transition them and their Israeli neighbors to accepting a two state solution that will be based on ending the conflict rather than merely pausing it. But the idea isn’t new. Though he gives the back of his hand to Israel’s current government as being part of the problem rather than the solution, this concept of fostering change on the ground as the foundation for genuine reconciliation is what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been advocating for years even as he has accepted a two-state solution as the basis for agreements.

But as smart as this may be, the problem with Shavit’s “New Peace” is pretty much the same as the shortcomings with the old variety. And the evidence of the impractical nature of his plan is very much on display today as the Palestinians and their cheerleaders around the world celebrate “Nakba Day.” May 15 is the anniversary of Israel’s Independence in 1948, an event that Palestinians refer to as the “disaster” or nakba. The parades, speeches, and vows of eliminating the Jewish state that are echoing throughout the political culture of the Palestinians today are proof that, at least for the foreseeable future, such practical plans as that of Shavit, which require them to put aside their historic grudges and focus on building a productive future, haven’t got a chance.

Shavit’s plan requires Israel to enact a total freeze on building in those Jewish settlements in the West Bank that are beyond the security fence. That’s a measure that wouldn’t inconvenience Israel all that much since almost all of the new housing beyond the 1967 lines is in Jerusalem and the settlement blocs that are inside the fence and would be kept by Israel in any peace agreement. But Shavit also says that Israel should withdraw completely from large swaths of the West Bank and that each such area would become an economic opportunity zone for Palestinian entrepreneurs where a free-market economy would grow without the debilitating corruption of the current Palestinian Authority.

The zones would be aided by the Arab states and the European Union and overseen by the United States. This new spirit of growth would foster a different civil political culture that would replace the old Palestinian one in which national identity is inextricably tied to war to the death against Zionism. Only by recreating themselves in this manner will Palestinians ever be willing to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. As Shavit writes:

Something for Everyone - Anti-Semitic Hate for Kids … and Adults

But while the media continues to focus on the deadlocked talks about talks, they rarely devote much energy to determining what exactly is driving the Palestinian culture of rejection. Part of the answer to that puzzle is supplied from those who, unlike the mainstream media, do pay attention to what is written and broadcast in the official Palestinian media run by Abbas’s PA.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary..
08 July '13..

Prior to his wife’s illness, the assumption was that Secretary of State John Kerry would be returning to the Middle East this week for another round of shuttle diplomacy aimed at reviving the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. But whenever Kerry does get back to wandering between Jerusalem and Ramallah, the same obstacles that have prevented peace will still be there. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas knows that if he does as Kerry bids and negotiates with Israel and signs an agreement ending the conflict, he will be running up against the Palestinian reluctance to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders might be drawn. But while the media continues to focus on the deadlocked talks about talks, they rarely devote much energy to determining what exactly is driving the Palestinian culture of rejection.

Part of the answer to that puzzle is supplied from those who, unlike the mainstream media, do pay attention to what is written and broadcast in the official Palestinian media run by Abbas’s PA. Those wondering why the Palestinians would reject peace offers including an independent state (as they have three times since 2000), can do no better than to view this PA TV excerpt brought to our attention from Palestinian Media Watch in which two little Palestinian girls are asked to recite a hateful poem that refers to Jews in the following manner:

“Most evil among creations, barbaric monkeys, wretched pigs,” condemned to “humiliation and hardship.”

It also went on to say the following about the Jewish presence in Jerusalem:

Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity

Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate

And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure.

It is shocking that the official media of the group that Kerry considers a partner for peace would be broadcasting hate and using children to do it. But, of course, as anyone who follows the PMW website regularly knows, there is actually nothing unusual about the PA acting in this manner.

The PA media has broadcast a steady diet of hatred against Israel and Jews since its inception after the Oslo Accords brought it into existence with numerous examples of them employing children and broadcasts specifically aimed at youngsters to do so. One of the great tragedies of the last 20 years has been the way Israel’s supposed peace partners have sowed the seeds of future conflict by inculcating their youth with doctrines that treat Jews as subhuman monsters with no rights or claims upon the land that both sides claim as their own.

The slow chipping away at the Land of Israel and its alternative

Annexing Area C will not end the conflict or guarantee Israel’s security forever. But not doing it is a recipe for more war, terrorism and insecurity.

Fresnozionism.org..
26 June '13..

Sometimes bold actions have undesirable outcomes. That’s why they are bold — they are risky. One example is probably the single worst mistake the Israeli government has made since 1948: recognizing the PLO as the representative of the “Palestinian people” and inviting it back from exile into the Jewish heartland (the second worst mistake was the 1967 decision to give control of the Temple Mount to the Waqf).

So I hesitate to recommend another bold action, especially at this tremendously dangerous time. But a decision to do nothing also has consequences, and in this case we can already see the beginning of the results of the policy of doing nothing.

I am referring to doing nothing about maintaining control of the highly strategic (and spiritually important) lands of Judea and Samaria, while permitting the US to push Israel into yet another pointless round of negotiations with a PLO that will not be satisfied by anything other than an Arab state from the river to the sea, and which cannot possibly be trusted to carry out any agreement it might make with Israel.

Meanwhile, the Arabs — financed by the Europeans and the US — are simply taking the land. One day, after extended fruitless negotiations, after countless Israeli concessions to “strengthen Abbas” or to “establish good will,” after numerous incidents of terrorism which the PLO will deplore in English and celebrate in Arabic, Israelis will wake up to find that there is a de facto Arab state in all of Judea/Samaria.

Then all that will be left will be for the UN Security Council to recognize it, for the IDF to withdraw, and for Israel to deal with a vicious terror state snuggled up to the soft belly of its population centers, international airport, etc.

We will get, in other words, a “two-state solution” whether we want one or not. But it will not be ‘land for peace’ — it will be land given up for absolutely nothing, and a step on the way to the annihilation of the state.

There is something we can do now. Presently — although the Arabs and their European friends are doing their best to change it — most (I’ve seen figures over 95%) of the Arab population of the territories lives in Areas A and B, the areas ceded to PLO control by the Oslo process, while the great majority of Jews live in Area C, the part under complete Israeli control. In addition to Jewish towns, area C includes areas strategic to Israel’s defense.

Job position available - Requires acting as a façade for the PA kleptocracy

...A PA that is too belligerent and too weak to make peace with Israel is a bad bet for foreign donors, but don’t expect that to stop the Europeans and perhaps even Kerry from continuing to try to bribe the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table or to create a viable government. It won’t work. As Fayyad and Hamdallah learned, the point of Palestinian politics is to perpetuate the conflict with Israel and to enrich Fatah officials. Anyone who gets in the way of that will last as long as Hamdallah did.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary..
20 June '13..

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas thought he was getting a pliant, user-friendly prime minister when he appointed Rami Hamdallah to replace Salam Fayyad. But two weeks after Abbas replaced the Western favorite who tried to rid the PA of corruption with what was thought to be a reliably pro-Fatah academic, he now finds himself looking for another replacement. Hamdallah quit today and, according to Reuters, posted an explanation on his Facebook page that said the decision was due to “outside interferences in his powers and duties.” In other words, even though, unlike Fayyad, Hamdallah was a Fatah Party member with no known political ambitions of his own, he still found it impossible to act as a facade for the PA kleptocracy.

Contrary to the slant of the Reuters piece, the main complication of this event for the PA isn’t the fact that Secretary of State John Kerry will be going back to the Middle East soon in his quixotic effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The Palestinians aren’t going to go back to the table to negotiate with Israel no matter who is their prime minister and everyone except Kerry knows it. Abbas’s problem is finding a respectable front man for the PA in order to keep foreign aid pouring in to his government. With Fayyad, who was the first Palestinian leader to ever try to improve the lot of his people, there was a hope that the PA could be transformed from the corrupt fiefdom created by Yasir Arafat. Without him, all Abbas has to offer the West are Fatah functionaries who know their only job is to make sure the theft and graft that Fayyad tried to stop resumes.

Fayyad’s No. 1 fan at the NY Times performs his own postmortem

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 April '13..

The political demise of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad continues to drive much of the discussion about the dead-in-the-water Middle East peace process in the media. Thus, it’s no surprise that Fayyad’s No. 1 fan at the New York Times would weigh in today on the paper’s op-ed page to perform his own postmortem on the death of “Fayyadism.” Thomas Friedman, who modestly takes credit for coining the term, writes today that there is plenty of blame to go around for his favorite’s failure. He rightly notes that both PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah Party and their Hamas rivals always wanted to get rid of Fayyad–the factor that I wrote last week was the main reason Fayyadism was doomed from the start. But Friedman also puts forward a theory about the American and Israeli responsibility for Fayyad’s failure.

According to this line of argument, which is rapidly being incorporated into the catechism of Israel-bashers, the cutoff of U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority by Congress as well as the withholding of various revenues by the Israelis precipitated Fayyad’s end. In this telling, without the cash to keep the Palestinian economy afloat, Fayyad’s reform agenda and administration rapidly collapsed, allowing his enemies to force him out. This narrative holds that it was these cuts, which were implemented to punish the PA for its decision to go to the United Nations to pursue independence rather than to negotiate for it in peace talks, were counterproductive and ultimately responsible for the exit of the only Palestinian leader who could be said to care about his people or peace.

But while this way of looking at things is convenient for those who always prefer to blame the Israelis and the pro-Israel community in the United States for everything that happens in the Middle East, it is completely illogical.

As even Friedman admits, Fayyad was adamantly opposed to the PA’s UN gambit that was nothing more than a way to evade peace talks since Abbas was unable and/or unwilling to ever make a deal with the Israelis. By placing the full force of U.S. policy on the same side as Fayyad, the Obama administration, Congress and Israel were backing up the PA prime minister, not undermining him. The PA remains completely dependent on foreign aid from the West, and using this leverage was the only way for President Obama and the Israelis to convey to Abbas that he should listen to Fayyad rather than make a grand gesture at the UN that would do nothing for the Palestinian people.

The PA’s bankruptcy is as much moral as it is financial.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
12 January '13..

As I noted yesterday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is on the road this week attempting to persuade Arab countries to give him money. Unfortunately for Abbas, his upgrade at the United Nations last month hasn’t made his panhandling act any more popular with those who voted to upgrade his status at the world body. In fact, the Palestinian Authority is broke. Though this isn’t the first time the PA has had cash flow problems, the current shortage is especially acute and enough to provoke a stern editorial from the New York Times blaming the problem primarily on Israel. But while Israel has withheld some tax revenue from Abbas, the problem in the West Bank goes a lot deeper than the current dispute between the Netanyahu government and the PA.

The Times is right that it is in no one’s interest that the PA collapse, but its call for more money from Israel, the United States, the Arab world and the international community to be poured into Abbas’s coffers misses the point about what is going on in the West Bank. No amount of foreign aid can fix a government and a society that is completely dysfunctional. The issue of the PA’s insolvency is directed related to its steadfast refusal to make peace. Though a Palestinian government that isn’t a basket case is needed to make a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict work, the issue here isn’t just that the PA is corrupt and incompetent. It is corrupt and incompetent in large measure because the political culture of Palestinian society is still more interested in perpetuating the conflict with Israel than in building a state.

Though the Arab and Muslim states that profess to support the Palestinians have done little to help them, throughout the nearly 20 years of its existence, the PA has been the recipient of vast sums of aid from Israel, the United States and the international community. For the most part, this money has been either stolen or wasted. The portion of it that did filter its way down to the Palestinian public was often spent on backing terrorist groups or on a vast scheme of public employment. That did little to develop the economy of the West Bank but it did serve to solidify the loyalty of those getting no-show or no-work jobs to first Yasir Arafat and then his successor Abbas.

In recent years, as the Times notes, there has been an effort by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to actually serve his people and to foster development as well as good government. The problem is that as much as the Americans and Israelis would like to help Fayyad, his efforts are still the exception to the rule. The unpopular Fayyad has little real influence over the PA’s future. He will also be sidelined if the Fatah-Hamas merger ever is brought to fruition.

More importantly, the failure of the West Bank economy is due to the refusal of Abbas to talk or make peace with Israel. Had he done so in 2008 when Ehud Olmert offered him statehood, things would be very different today. That is also true of Arafat’s refusal of Ehud Barak’s peace offers in 2000 and 2001. The second intifada that he launched ruined the West Bank’s economy.

The plain truth is that there is no assurance that the money that the United States, Israel or the Europeans are asked to hand over to Abbas will do anything more than prop up a failed regime. It may be that subsidizing failure is a better alternative than the chaos that would ensue if the PA completely collapsed, but it is not the answer to the problem.

What the PA really needs is not so much a handout as a sea change in its culture that would allow Abbas or a successor to end the conflict and to start the business of building a stable society that is not obsessed with violence against Israel. So long as that doesn’t happen, the Palestinians will continue to be beggars and the Israeli public will never support a withdrawal that might lead to the West Bank becoming a terrorist launching pad the way Gaza has become since 2005.

The PA’s bankruptcy is as much moral as it is financial. Until the Palestinians and those like the Times who want to help them realize this, aid to them will continue to be a case of throwing more money down the rabbit hole.

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.

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Breaks the heart. Fayyad's Last Stand?

Jonathan Schanzer..
Weekly Standard Blog..
25 September '12..

"Bir Halek, Ya Fayyad" is not a catchy tune. But the popularity of Palestinian singer Kassem Najar's song, which translates to "Get A Grip, Fayyad," is an indication that Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, may be on the way out. Najar, however, is the least of Fayyad's problems.

In recent weeks, protesters in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, and beyond have surrounded and threatened him, burned him in effigy, and thrown shoes at his likeness. "Yalla irhal ya Fayyad" ("let's go, Fayyad get out") was a recurring chant.

While the protests have subsided, Fayyad's fate still hangs in the balance. His position is weak because he lacks the political machinery and street-level support to withstand his enemies' efforts to undermine him. A former Fayyad advisor told me that his former boss has received "a flood of phone calls from the State Department and Capitol Hill," imploring him to stand firm. Nonetheless, he concedes that the prime minister's American supporters can do nothing for him "on the ground."

Fayyad knows full well that Palestinian politics is a blood sport. In an act of ironic defiance, he posted the Najar song on his own Facebook page. The embattled premier has also announced that he is prepared to step aside. But he's not going down without a fight. Recently he announced that his government would reduce fuel prices and cut the value added tax, two of the issues that first sparked the protests. Fayyad also announced cuts to high-ranking officials' salaries and budgets.

However, it has become clear that these protests will not end with cost-cutting measures. The PA is under the gun amid an economic crisis stemming from rising fuel prices, a precipitous drop-off in foreign assistance, and endemic corruption that drives down private enterprise, spurs capital flight, and decreases government collection. The high cost of maintaining side-by-side administrations in the West Bank and Gaza (where Hamas wrested control by force in 2007) is also taking its toll on the Palestinian treasury. The resulting decline in government revenues from both taxes and international donations has led to the PA's recurring inability to cover its civil service salaries.

Palestinian Corruption Matters and Why

Seth Mandel..
Commentary/Contentions..
11 July '12..



In 2005, an extremely wealthy old friend of Yasir Arafat’s, Munib al-Masri, spoke about the missed opportunities he witnessed during Arafat’s time in power for an article in the Atlantic. Here is what he told the author of that piece, David Samuels:

With three hundred, four hundred million dollars we could have built Palestine in ten years. Waste, waste, waste. I flew over the West Bank in a helicopter with Arafat at the beginning of Oslo, and I told him how easy we could make five, six, seven towns here; we could absorb a lot of people here; and have the right of return for the refugees. If you have good intentions and you say you want to reach a solution, we could do it. I said, if you have money and water, it could be comparable to Israel, this piece of land.

It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, a few hundred million dollars. Yet since that helicopter ride, according to a new Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. has given the Palestinians about $4 billion. They didn’t build the state, as al-Masri hoped.

But as the report indicates, we had our own goals for the money:

Fresnozionism - EU tough on Greece, soft on PA

Fresnozionism.org..
07 February '12..





News item (WAFA is the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority):

JERUSALEM, February 7, 2012 (WAFA) – The European Union and Sweden Tuesday contributed €24.7 million to the payment of the January salaries and pensions of around 84,300 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to an EU press release. The European Commission made €22.5 million contribution and Sweden made €2.2 million.

The European Commission’s contribution comes from the €155 million package of financial assistance to the recurrent expenditures of the Palestinian Authority committed for 2012, said the release.

The commitment of the EU to the Palestinian cause is remarkable, compared to the way it treats some of its own members. For example, it will be placing tough terms on proposed loans to Greece, forcing the Greeks to repay bondholders first, rather than (for example) government workers. And loans will be contingent on the Greeks laying off 15,000 public sector workers.

Yet the Palestinian Authority (PA), which has just (again) made an agreement with the terrorist Hamas, and which refuses to negotiate with Israel without preconditions, seems to be able to get whatever it asks for, without any demands being made on it. How hard would it be, for example, to insist that the PA enter serious negotiations with Israel before it gets paid?

Speaking of public sector workers, the PA is paying salaries to ‘employees’ in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Either these workers are doing nothing, or they are working for Hamas. And did I mention that the PA pays stipends to prisoners in Israeli jails, including convicted murderers? This, or the rampant corruption of the PA, doesn’t seem to bother the EU.

But this direct aid is not all, by far, that Europe (and the rest of the world) do for the Palestinians. There is the $1.2 billion each year spent by UNRWA on ‘Palestinian refugees’, the only hereditary class of refugees in history, while their leadership and the Arab states refuse to resettle them or treat them like humans. The second largest contributor to UNRWA, after the US, is the EU.

We must not forget the millions of Euros provided every year to support extreme left-wing anti-state NGOs in Israel (see illustration at top), which keep them alive as a fifth column inside Israel, despite their lack of support from Israelis. And, while the EU seems to think a hands-off policy is the best way to help the Palestinians develop a democratic society, they take the opposite approach to Israel. One would think they believe that there’s a new Mandate, which includes countries like Norway and even the Vatican, to rule the land of Israel.

One wonders what they get out of this tremendously expensive enterprise.

Link:http://fresnozionism.org/2012/02/eu-tough-on-greece-soft-on-pa/


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Tobin - The Peace Process is Formally Buried

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
06 February '12..

In a ceremony broadcast live across the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was formally buried. The event, which formalized the unity pact between the Fatah Party and its Hamas rival, marked the formation of a new Palestinian Authority government in which both factions would share power. PA President Mahmoud Abbas will also assume the role of prime minister, ousting Salam Fayyad, the pro-peace and development technocrat who had earned the trust of the West for his efforts to build the Palestinian economy and enforce the rule of law. But Fayyad’s role in the PA is now over, as is, apparently, Abbas’s pretense that he, too, favored peace and development.

There will be those apologists for the Palestinians who will say that unity was necessary for peace and even claim that this means that Hamas is abandoning violence. But they will be either lying or deceiving themselves. Hamas’ goal of Israel’s destruction is unchanged as is, it should be noted, that of their erstwhile Fatah enemies. By signing the pact and now making it a reality, Abbas has for all intents and purposes torn up the Oslo Peace Accords, signed with such hope on the White House Lawn in September 1993.

Oslo required the Palestinians to give up violence and dedicate themselves to peace and establishing a civil society in exchange for rule over the West Bank and Gaza and the implicit promise of independence. This PLO leader Yasir Arafat did not do. He nurtured terrorists among his own ranks even as he jealously guarded his power against rivals like Hamas. The choice for the Palestinians was clear. Their leaders could act to wipe out those who opposed peace and therefore seal a plan of coexistence with Israel or they could fail to do so and condemn both peoples to another generation or more of conflict. Arafat, who was offered an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem in 2000 and 2001, refused to accept it, and instead chose another round of conflict via the terrorist war of attrition known as the second intifada.

Tobin - The Palestinian Authority’s ATM

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
24 January '12..

In a further sign of the ascent of radicalism in Palestinian politics, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told the Washington Times he would not run for the post of president. Fayyad, a favorite of the West due to his preference for nation building and improving the lives of ordinary Palestinians rather than promoting terror and hatred of Jews and Israel, is on the chopping block as prime minister because Hamas insists the unity pact with Fatah will not be fulfilled until his ouster. Fayyad knows better than to try his luck with the Palestinian electorate. Despite an unparalleled record of fighting corruption and promoting prosperity, he hasn’t a chance against the gunslingers of both Fatah and Hamas.

Even more interesting is his insistence he will not serve as finance minister, the job he held previous to his current post. To his credit, he doesn’t like the idea of being a front for a Hamas government whose respectability would be pimped abroad in order to continue the flow of aid from the United States and Europe. “I do not really view myself as an ATM for the Palestinian Authority,” said Fayyad.

Tobin - The Islamist Winter and Middle East Peace

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
22 January '12..

Anyone inclined to be sanguine about the future of Palestinian politics need only read the latest report by the Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh to understand that the threat of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank is real. The Fatah-Hamas unity agreement concluded last year may not yet have been consummated but, as Abu Toameh writes, even Fatah officials are starting to understand that if they allow another election, the Islamists may take control of all of the territories just as their Muslim Brotherhood allies have done in Egypt. According to Abu Toameh, Fatah officials are now openly expressing worry about the outcome of these elections, assuming they are held in May as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has promised.

No one should be holding their breath waiting for Abbas to make good on that pledge. Given that he is in now about to start the 8th year of the four-year-term to which he was elected in 2005, Abbas’s idea of democracy is limited to elections that he thinks he’ll win. Yet the pact he signed with Hamas last year is an indication he believes he cannot govern indefinitely without the protection of the radical terrorist group. That’s a piece of intelligence that should inform not only Fatah, but those in the United States that are urging Israel to make further concessions to the Palestinians in the vain hope they will finally agree to make peace.

Five years of darkness for Gilad Shalit

Fresnozionism.org
26 May '11

Gilad Shalit’s fifth anniversary as a captive held incommunicado by Hamas will arrive next month. It is generally thought that he is in an underground bunker somewhere in Gaza. Hamas has not allowed him visits from the Red Cross, or to communicate with his family, in contravention of the Geneva Convention.

Former Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that it was almost impossible to use military force to free him:

Ashkenazi explained during an address at a business forum at Bar Ilan University, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate, that Hamas is hiding the young soldier in a way “that makes it almost impossible” for the IDF to find him.


“We do not know where he is,” Ashkenazi said.


“It must be admitted that we cannot use military force to release Shalit… It is my dream to see a helicopter landing at the Erez Crossing with [him] and I phone his parents to inform him that we have freed him,” Ashkenazi confided.

I can understand that he might be in a booby-trapped location such that even if the IDF knew where he was they would be unable to rescue him. But someone knows where he is. The IDF has sources in Gaza, and they have the ability to bring Hamas operatives out and question them. How can it be “almost impossible” to find him?

The former IDF chief said that if a military option could not be found to free the captive soldier, then Israel would have to admit that “a reasonable price” would have to be paid.

The ‘price’ won’t be ‘reasonable’. That’s the whole idea. The price will be that Israel meets one of the main demands of the Palestinian Arabs: it will ultimately release all Arab prisoners, no matter what they’ve done. Once an exchange like the one Hamas has proposed is made, the whole enterprise of arresting terrorists and confining them will fall apart.

[An aside: Ashkenazi's dilemma is not exhaustive. I wonder if the option of pressuring Hamas by threatening its leaders (and carrying out the threats if he is not released) has been tried. They are quite prepared to send compromised women, mentally handicapped teenagers and others on suicide missions, but are they really prepared to become martyrs themselves?]

Today, since Hamas has become a full partner in the Palestinian Authority, the PA has assumed responsibility for Shalit. Not only the leaders of Hamas, but those of the PA are responsible for the ongoing war crime that is Shalit’s cruel captivity. In fact Gilad’s parents sent a letter to the US Congress asking that PA funding be cut off until he is freed.

The official PA position, according to negotiator Nabil Shaath, seems to be that there is nothing wrong with continuing to hold Shalit hostage! It’s remarkable the way the world pretends that the PA is better than a bunch of gangsters, and keeps on paying them, training their army and providing them with weapons.

In September, these liars, terrorists and murderers will be asking the UN to help them take a chunk of the Jewish National Home and create a pretend state that will be a base for more terrorism and murder.

Why not remind UN delegates — not that it will change what these corrupt parasites do, but it might embarrass them a little — that they are legitimizing gangsters?

Here is a billboard that a young Israeli-American named Gal Sitty wants to put up facing UN headquarters in Manhattan:

Gal Sitty's billboard

Sitty has set up a site at which people can contribute to the campaign to set up the billboard. As of today (May 26) there are pledges for $4,696 out of the $10,000 needed.

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Who Won't Talk? The Palestinian Authority, Not Israel

Barry Rubin
Rubin Reports
09 April '11

http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/04/09/who-wont-talk-the-palestinian-authority-not-israel/

Here’s a wonderful line in the great film “Arsenic and Old Lace” in which the main character, played by Cary Grant, learns that his relatives are all quite insane. He remarks, “Insanity doesn’t just run in my family. It gallops!” So it is with anti-Israel bias in the New York Times.

The effort to make Israel look bad is simply ridiculous. But even in this context, the following lead paragraph caught my eye:

“As Germany moves closer to other European countries in adopting an increasingly tough stance toward Israel’s reluctance to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that it was more urgent than ever that the talks be restarted.”

The article as a whole is pretty shoddy stuff, based on rumor and diplomatic gossip. But I want to focus on that phrase about “Israel’s reluctance to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians.”

It is a matter of public record that at no time during the past half-dozen years has Israel been reluctant to hold peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The talks were broken off by the Palestinians, that is the Palestinian Authority (PA), in January 2009 during the Hamas-Israel war, begun by a Hamas attack on Israel.

The PA then refused to negotiate, despite almost daily statements about his desire for talks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for more than 18 months. When President Barack Obama called for talks in Washington to be held in December 2009, Netanyahu agreed and PA “president” Mahmoud Abbas, refused.

Then Obama asked Israel for a nine-month freeze on new construction in the West Bank. Netanyahu agreed, to be warmly praised by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as having made an unprecedented concession, on October 31, 2009. Until the very end of that freeze, the PA again refused to talk. Finally, knowing that the freeze would end within days, the PA agreed. A couple of rounds of talks (one each two weeks) were held. Then the freeze expired, as everyone knew it would, and the PA walked out of talks.

Since then, Israel has continued to propose negotiations; the PA has refused. Yet over and over we see in the Western media that the lack of talks is Israel’s fault. This is such an obvious fabrication—a total reversal of the truth—that it is downright staggering. Incidentally, I haven’t seen anyone in the Obama administration make any statement of this sort. The U.S. government knows very well that the PA is the one refusing to negotiate.

And why?

First, the PA leadership is generally too hardline to negotiate any conceivable peace with Israel, unwilling to make any compromises.

Second, it is too weak to negotiate any conceivable peace with Israel, unable to make any compromises. It fears its own people—whose extremism has been stoked by every Palestinian institution, leaders fear their rivals, and the ruling Fatah fears Hamas.

Third, the PA has another strategy: go to the UN, have the world declare Palestine a state, and there’s no need to negotiate with Israel at all or to make any compromises. What’s there to negotiate about when they already have most of what they want?

If you don’t understand why the PA doesn’t want to make peace with Israel, can’t make peace with Israel, and has an alternative in mind to making peace with Israel, you can’t understand anything about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the Arab-Israeli conflict, or the Middle East in general.

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Israel Straight Talk: Peace in the Middle East?

Avi Abelow
Israel Straight Talk
IST #42
05 April '11

Bottom line, we here at Israel StraightTalk believe that we can live in peace with our Arab neighbors, just not based on the failed Oslo paradigm of land for peace and not with terrorists - whether from the Palestinian Authority or with the Hamas. It will be years until this can happen, but it can happen.



Watch the video to understand more. Share this video so others can better understand as well. Visit us on http://www.facebook.com/israelstraighttalk and let us know what you think. All comments and questions are welcome.

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