Palestinian Officials Condemn US for Offering to Help - by Khaled Abu Toameh

It is as if someone applies for a loan from a bank but demands that the bank accept his or her demands, and not the other way around. Usually, those who offer the money have the right to set the conditions.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
21 February '20..

Palestinian leaders have gone to great lengths to explain their opposition to US President Donald Trump's recently unveiled plan, "Peace to Prosperity," for Middle East peace.

While these leaders are entitled to oppose Trump's vision for peace, it is not clear why they are also rejecting US financial aid to Palestinians. By rejecting it, Palestinian leaders are denying their people the right to a better life and a strong economy.

The US Embassy in Israel has a Palestinian Affairs Unit that regularly offers Palestinians grants and funding opportunities that include, for students, US higher education and scholarships.

Recently, the Unit announced an open competition for grants to Palestinian individuals and not-for-profit organizations to implement activities that advance the organization's or individual's goals -- particularly if those goals include a comprehensive, lasting, negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a prosperous, stable, and transparent Palestinian society, economy and system of governance.

The program's main objectives are to provide students with the skills and experiences that will make them more competitive for higher education and work opportunities; build a culture of mentorship that cultivates leaders in Palestinian society, education and business; encourage citizens' engagement in participatory governance; foster entrepreneurship, critical thinking and problem-solving skills among the youth and between diverse communities, and to promote understanding, tolerance, pluralism and shared values.

The US Embassy's Palestinian Affairs Unit also announced a new funding opportunity to establish English-language summer camps for young Palestinians, and an open competition for Palestinian organizations to hold a conference on social media marketing for e-commerce.

These programs seem intended for the benefit of Palestinian youths. You would think that, notwithstanding political differences or controversy surrounding a peace plan, any leader who actually cared about the well-being of his or her people would welcome such an offer. You would be wrong.

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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. 

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Excellent Question: What Are Palestinian Leaders Afraid Of? by Khaled Abu Toameh

Criticism is fine, of course -- if it is directed at the Palestinians' arch-enemy, Israel. Otherwise, Palestinian journalists had best keep their criticism to themselves -- lest the PA and Hamas decide to leave them in critical condition.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
31 October '19..

Facing growing discontent from their people, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have resumed their crackdown on Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the past few weeks, several journalists were arrested by PA and Hamas security forces.

The arrests are seen by Palestinian journalists as part of the PA and Hamas programs to silence their critics and deter reporters from disclosing anything that reflects badly on Palestinian leaders. Any form of criticism, particularly from Palestinian journalists, has long been anathema to the PA and Hamas.

The latest crackdown on Palestinian journalists is said to spring from the PA's and Hamas's fear that the current wave of anti-corruption protests sweeping Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and other Arab countries may spread to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas security forces arrested dozens of Palestinians after local activists called for holding demonstrations to protest the ongoing economic crisis there. Among those taken into custody are journalists Hani al-Agha and Bassam Moheisen, who were arrested for posting critical comments against Hamas on social media.

Moheisen was apparently arrested because of his affiliation with Hamas's rivals in the Fatah faction headed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas. For the past 19 years, Moheisen has been working as a producer for the West Bank-based Voice of Palestine radio station. His family says he was arrested after he posted comments on Facebook in which he criticized Hamas. A family member, who asked not to be identified, said that Moheisen has been tortured in the Hamas prison.

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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. 

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How Hamas Leaders Continue Fooling Palestinians - by Bassam Tawil

The problem... is when your father is a senior terrorist leader who devotes himself to inciting against Israel and Jews and encouraging other young Palestinians to sacrifice their lives in the war against Israel. Hamad, like the rest of the Hamas leaders, would never send his own son to attack soldiers at the border with Israel.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
25 September '19..

The leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian terror group ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007, seem to have hearts of stone regarding the suffering of the people living under their regime.

These leaders have no problem sending Palestinians to risk their lives near the border with Israel, while they and their families enjoy a comfortable life. More than 250 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured in clashes with the Israel Defense Forces since the beginning of the Hamas-sponsored weekly protests near the Gaza-Israel border in March 2018.

While the protests are continuing and more Palestinians continue to put their lives at risk at the behest of the Hamas leadership, the terror group's senior officials are busy throwing lavish parties for their family members and upgrading their personal treasuries. It is as if the Hamas leaders were telling their people: Sacrifice yourself for the cause of destroying Israel and killing Jews so that we and our families can continue to live it up.

The latest example of this exploitation of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip surfaced in the form of a video of the birthday celebration of 20-year-old Mohammed, son of senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad.

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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. 

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The cheerleaders who encourage Palestinians to swim uphill - by A.J. Caschetta

So long as they are led by fools who never miss a meal, whose electricity never goes out and whose bank accounts are in the black, Palestinians will remain stateless.

A.J. Caschetta..
JNS.org..
05 August '19..

What happens when the loser of a war demands reparations and territory from the victor? If the question seems ridiculous (and it should), it nevertheless accurately describes the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. What’s most remarkable though is that Israel continues to underwrite Palestinian society with territory, money and autonomy—all of which the Palestinians freely admit they will use to fight Israel.

The latest wrinkle in this bizarre situation finds the losing party refusing $50 billion in economic aid because the cash deal does not force the winning party to give up everything it has won since 1948. That’s right, the Palestinians have refused to even negotiate the Trump administration’s so-called “deal of the century” because they know that it will not grant them a “right to return” and claim land in Israel.

The Palestinians’ bold sense of entitlement comes primarily from their leaders, both the PLO/Palestinian Authority and Hamas. But a close second place in the competition for encouraging Palestinian rejectionism goes to the academic world. Without both an elite class of Palestinian ideologues and an international coterie of academics instilling jealousy and anger in the Palestinians, there would likely be a Palestinian state today. Instead stateless Palestinians are encouraged and applauded for turning down offers that stateless Kurds and Tibetans would jump at.

Curiously, the fact that no one has seen Trump’s mysterious “deal of the century” has stopped few from expressing certainty about how bad it must be.

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A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is a Ginsburg-Ingerman fellow.

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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Absolutely! Bring on Bahrain! - by Oded Revivi

What threatens the Palestinian leadership is not what threatens the average Palestinian—and that is why the Bahrain workshop is so threatening to the P.A.

Oded Revivi..
JNS.org..
26 June '19..

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Yet that is exactly what the professional diplomatic community has demanded regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Not surprisingly then, the past few decades have seen us move further away from a comprehensive resolution to the conflict.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, has made a concerted attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, as demonstrated by those spearheading its diplomatic efforts, who come from the world of business and eschew the more accepted methods of international diplomacy.

Critics ridicule them, saying “this is not some real estate deal.” And while it is much more than a property dispute, this is an amusing critique coming from those who have focused so much on territorial boundaries and borders while ignoring the conflict’s core undercurrents.

As an Israeli mayor governing in these disputed territories, I and my constituents have much to gain from the economic workshop currently taking place in Bahrain. My Palestinian neighbors have even more to gain. And both of us would also be the most direct beneficiaries of a comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yet, after rejecting multiple offers to create a Palestinian state, Palestinian Authority leaders have made a calculated decision to avoid negotiations altogether. While the merits of that decision can be debated, it should not be used as a pretext to prevent Palestinians from improving their lives, even if they do not know what national passports they will ultimately carry.

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Oded Revivi is the Mayor of Efrat and the Chief International Envoy of the YESHA Council, representing the 450,000 Israelis living throughout Judea and Samaria.

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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The Continuing Palestinian Threats to Arab Normalization with Israel - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...So, Fatah and Hamas cannot agree to pay their workers, they cannot agree on supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip, and they cannot agree on providing medical supplies to hospitals there. They do agree, however, on inflicting more harm and damage on their people. If they go on like this, the day will come when the Palestinians will discover that their friends and brothers have become their biggest enemies.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
07 November '18..

For more than 10 years now, Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction have been at war with each other. Attempts by their Arab brothers, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to solve the power struggle between the two rival Palestinian groups have thus far failed and are unlikely to succeed in the foreseeable future. The gap between Hamas and Fatah remains as wide as ever: the two parties despise each other. Fatah wants to return to the Gaza Strip; Hamas says it out loud: no. Fatah wants Hamas to disarm and cede control over the Gaza Strip; Hamas says no.

On one particular issue, however, the two sides lay aside their differences and see eye to eye. When it comes to Israel, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between Fatah and Hamas.

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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. 

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There may be a rude awakening for the Palestinian dream - by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

The invented national ethos of the Palestinian Authority is about to collapse, now that the PA has cancelled the two agreements that allow its tottering government to survive.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
Israel National News..
03 November '18..
Link: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/22949

When something is built on an unstable foundation, it is only natural for its long term survival to be at risk. It is also natural for it to be in need of constant support just to keep from falling. The belief that it will eventually be able to stand on its own two feet causes people to lend their support, but only egregious fools continue to do so if there is no hope of its ever being independent, because in that case, everythiing those supporters have invested is doomed to be irretrievably lost.

The Palestinian Authority is in exactly that position today and this article will expound on the reasons it has no hope of every being able to become a viable and independent entity.

The prime reason for this situation is the very reason the PA was founded. In 1993, the Israeli government tried to find someone who would accept responsibility for eliminating the terror network created by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, someone willing to be rewarded for anti-terrorist activity by being granted the authority to rule the area and administer the lives of the Arabs living there. This was the "deal" concocted by the Israelis, and the "contractor" who accepted the challenge was the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) headed by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat. The Israeli government actually believed that Arafat was serious about eliminating terror and establishing an autonomous administrative system for running those territories.

Of course, this deal was doomed to failure from the start due to the residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and also the government of Israel. The Arab residents considered the Palestinian Authority (PA), the governing arm of the PLO, to be the operative arm of Israeli policy, an organization collaorating with Israel by means of the coordinated security system that exists up until this very day.

"Security coordination" to the Palestinian Arab mind is a laundered word for cooperation, meaning PA security forces attempt to apprehend the terrorists that belong to organizations other than their own and hand them over to Israel. Many of the Arab residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza see this as no less than treason.

In order to cover up that perceived betrayal and silence its critics, the PA employs thousands in both real and artificial jobs (the kind where the worker does not have to do anything in order to be paid) . For the sake of earning a livng, people are willing to shut their mouths and utter not a word about what they really think of the PA and the reasons for its existence.

Palestinian Leadership Choices: Start-Up Nation vs Blow-Up Nation - by Michael Freund

...One of the sad things about this situation is that the Palestinians are clearly resourceful people, although it seems that many of their energies are directed toward destruction. They could have invested in human capital and technological progress as Israel, the "Start-up Nation," has done, and brought themselves peace and prosperity. Instead, the Palestinian leadership appears intent on turning "Palestine" into the "Blow-up Nation," best known not for what it builds, but rather for what it aims to destroy.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
11 October '18..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/21688/palestinians-blow-up-nation

With its decades-old track record of murder and mayhem, Hamas has already secured itself a place in the annals of infamy. From bus bombings to underground terror tunnels to the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets and projectiles at Israeli towns and cities, the Islamic extremist group has repeatedly found new ways to sow widespread death and destruction. But just when it seems that their injurious impulses cannot possibly sink any lower, the organization's terrorist masterminds somehow manage to come up with novel methods that would make even the devil blush.

Such has been the case in recent days when, as Yediot Aharonot reported, Hamas has launched the "terror of the toys," deliberately targeting young Jewish children by attaching explosive devices concealed as playthings to balloons and sending them airborne from Gaza towards neighboring Jewish communities in the Negev.

In one instance, a bomb disguised as a toy tied to a batch of balloons was discovered in the Eshkol region. It was glittering with colorful lights, clearly intended to entice a curious Israeli child to pick it up. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered and diffused before it caused any damage.

But this incident, along with others, prompted security officials to issue an unusual warning to local residents last week: "Please instruct your children not to touch objects attached to balloons which appear to be toys." The circular further noted, "Sometimes there are drawings on the balloons, with hearts and smiles, funny faces and the like. All of these are intended to create an innocent cover for the explosive devices."

Question. Why Do Palestinian Leaders Oppose Helping Their People? - by Bassam Tawil

Palestinian leaders would prefer to see their people starve than make any form of concessions for peace with Israel. Yet Al-Aloul and Abbas are not the ones who are facing starvation. There is nothing more comfortable than sitting in your fashionable house in Ramallah or Nablus and talking about starvation and humanitarian aid.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
12 July '18..

For years, Palestinian leaders have been complaining that the Gaza Strip was "on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe." Time and again, they have warned that unless the world helps the Palestinians living there, the Gaza Strip will "erupt like a volcano."

Israel and the US are now offering to help improve the living conditions of the Palestinians living under Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip. But guess who is fiercely opposed to any attempt to resolve the "humanitarian and economic crisis" in the coastal enclave, home to some two million Palestinians? Answer: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction.

In the past few weeks, both Israel and the US administration have come up with different ideas to help the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, who recently visited the Middle East, are said to have presented initiatives that included providing necessities such as electricity, desalinating drinking water, employment opportunities and reviving the industrial zone in the Gaza Strip.

Israel, for its part, has asked Cyprus to consider the possibility of establishing a seaport on the island for shipping goods to the Gaza Strip. According to reports, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has reached an understanding with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades to pursue the port plan. Liberman's office said that Israel is working internationally in a number of ways to try to "change the reality" in the Gaza Strip.

One would think that the Palestinian leaders would be extremely happy about these initiatives to alleviate the suffering of their people in the Gaza Strip. The plans to improve the living conditions of the residents of the Gaza Strip should be music to the ears of the Palestinian Authority leadership, right? Wrong.

What, exactly, is behind this mystifying desire on the part of the Palestinian leaders to deny their people a shot at a decent life?

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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. 

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If the Palestinians ever wish to seek a better life - by Bassam Tawil

...The streets of Ramallah and Gaza City showcase, yet again, that the Palestinians' true tragedy over the past five decades has been failed and corrupt leadership -- one that keeps dragging them from one disaster to another; one that never offers them any hope; one that has been radicalizing and brainwashing its people; one that steals large portions of the financial aid provided by the international community, and one that has brought them nothing but dictatorship and repression.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
21 June '18..

In the past two weeks, Palestinians received yet another reminder that they are living under undemocratic regimes that have less than no respect for public freedoms.

The regimes of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip never miss an opportunity to remind their people of the dire consequences that await anyone who speaks out against the leaders. The two Palestinian regimes have been forcing it down the throats of their people for many years.

Still, some Palestinians seem surprised each time the PA or Hamas send their police officers to break up (or, more precisely, to break bones in) a demonstration in Ramallah or the Gaza Strip.

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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. 

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Normalization, Boycotts and Palestinian "Treason" - by Bassam Tawil

...The Palestinians' anti-normalization campaign against Israel means that Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel. What they seek is not peace with Israel, but peace without Israel. They want to see Israel gone from the Middle East. They want to see Jews vanish from the region. The Palestinians' problem is not with a settlement or a checkpoint or a fence. They have a problem with the existence of Israel in any borders.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
30 May '18..

Palestinian leaders have spent the past few months calling for boycotts of Israel and the US. The most recent call came just a few weeks ago, when Palestinian Authority leaders and officials called on all countries to boycott the inauguration ceremony of the US embassy in Jerusalem.

One of the officials who called for boycotting the ceremony was Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, and a top advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas. Majdalani is also famous for his repeated calls in the past few years for boycotting Israel in all fields.

Now, it seems that Majdalani is being forced to taste the same medicine he has been prescribing for Israel and the US. His efforts to promote boycotts of Israel and the US have backfired. Ironically, the boycotter Majdalani is now being boycotted by his own people. This is what happens when all you preach to your people day and night is hatred, incitement and boycotts. Eventually, you yourself become affected by the same messages of hate and brainwashing.

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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. 

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The PA does not care about Palestinians killed in Syria? Oh well. - by Sheri Oz

...why should they care about what happens to unrelated people in another Arab country? Let the Egyptian leadership worry about the Palestinians who are really Egyptian; let the Saudi Arabian leadership worry about the Palestinians who are really Saudis. And the Palestinians who are really Syrian? Caught in their own civil war. Oh well.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
27 April '18..

If Jews are in trouble anywhere in the world, Israel will do what it can to save them. The Entebbe rescue is only one such example. When Americans were trapped in the embassy in Iran and their lives were threatened, the USA made attempts to rescue them. The PA has no power to do anything militarily, but we do not see their diplomats shouting out in pain or banging on tables in the UN, begging the “protector of world peace” to pull no stops in rescuing the Palestinians dying in Syria or running for their lives.

Yesterday (26 April 2018), renowned Israeli Arab writer, Khaled Abu Toameh, wrote a heartfelt piece on the atrocities committed against Palestinian refugees in Syria, describing a clear case of ethnic cleansing. He concluded with the claim that if Palestinians are not being killed by Jews they are of no interest to anyone, not the UN, not even their own leaders in the Palestinian Authority (PA):

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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. 

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The Oslo Israeli-Occupation Accords? - by Sheri Oz

...The point is, therefore, that you cannot have signed a legal document agreeing to the current situation and then turn around and claim that you are occupied. Well, I suppose you can, and unfortunately many people believe the occupation-lie. It is time to remind everyone that the Palestinian Arab leaders agreed to the facts on the ground as they are today.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
04 June '17..

Those who regard Israel as occupying the West Bank (Judea & Samaria) should reconsider the issue in view of the way they regard legally binding contracts.

All countries have legal ages of majority, the age at which an individual can sign a legally binding contract. In the USA, for example, contracts can only be signed by those over the age of 18. In some countries, 21 is the age at which contracts become legally binding. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the signatories to the Oslo Accords were old enough to be legally bound by the contracts they co-signed on behalf of their respective populations. For those who are not familiar with the individuals involved, a photo (above) taken at the time should dispel any doubt about the matter of age of majority.

This means, furthermore, that successive leaders are likewise bound by the set of agreements collectively called the Oslo Accords, unless and until a replacement contract is drawn up and signed by similarly authorized individuals.

From “Occupation” to Self-Administration

Without going into an accounting of how either side of the agreement has not lived up to expectations detailed in the Accords, it is important that we point out the relevance of the Oslo Accords to the so-called Israeli occupation.

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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. 

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The ‘Nakba’ and the ongoing catastrophe of bad Palestinian decisions - by David Collier

...How many mistakes. How many bad choices. Event after event, year after year. Choosing to focus on fighting Israel. Over a century of mistakes and still they seem unable to stop fighting and to start focusing on building something positive for themselves. Still choosing to drown in a swamp of hate. This is the true catastrophe.

David Collier..
Across the Great Divide..
15 May '17..

Today (Monday) is the 15th May, one day after the Gregorian calendar date for Israel’s Independence Day. Today, Palestinians and anti-Israel activists will commemorate the ‘Nakba’, or Catastrophe.

Why the 15th May? Let me take a brief journey through history to find out if there are more suitable dates that should have been chosen. For example, just 11 days after the handshake between Arafat and Rabin in September 1993, Yigal Vaknin was murdered by a Hamas terrorist. Imagine, if during the Oslo peace process, violence had not exploded on the Israeli streets. For this reason perhaps September 21st would provide a good alternative date to commemorate.

Here are some others:

September 16th. The day in 2008 the peace initiative of Israeli PM Olmert began to unravel as the Palestinian leadership didn’t think the offer generous enough.

Or maybe, by this point, the Palestinian Authority was already incapable of representing the entire Palestinian population. If this is true then the day for commemoration should be 25 January. For on that date in 2006, the Palestinian population gave power to Hamas. Civil strife began and tore the Palestinians apart. Within weeks rockets had flown from Gaza. Perhaps the date that Palestinians voted for a radical Islamic terrorist group is the best date to commemorate the catastrophe?

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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. 

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A Palestinian Arab, Isolated And Afraid, Yearns For Normalization With Israel - by Sheri Oz

...As long as there are world powers propping up the PA — as long as Israel, herself, continues to prop up the PA — in the misguided belief that the leadership will be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel, Habib and those who think like him will continue to be isolated from one another as Jew-hatred remains the only publicly acceptable attitude. No grassroots pro-peace organizations will be able to sprout on Palestinian Arab initiative. And Jews and Arabs will be prevented from establishing the normalization that is the only sane way to proceed were it safe to do so.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
17 May '17..

Leaders have legacies; the rest of us have lives. And normalization is a death sentence for some.

Trump may be making his opening gambit for a Nobel Prize. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is making sure his legacy will include bamboozling the Western World with lies about educating kids toward peace while paying salaries to terrorists according to the number of Jews they killed, and growing super-rich on the backs of his own impoverished people. Our own Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may make his legacy as the shrewdest politician who talks out of both sides of his mouth while smoking a Cuban cigar and drinking pink champagne and having had a brother who was a hero.

Legacies are for the history books. The rest of us live lives that are counted only by the number of seconds we breath the air around us and the stories told by those who remember us after we are gone — each of us is like a drop of water hovering over the vast ocean of humanity, distinct only until the moment we touch the surface of the sea. But while we are that drop of hovering water, we want to live meaningful and satisfying lives, however we may define that. For most of us, it probably includes loving and being loved, and raising healthy children who get to do the same. Our leaders are supposed to provide the substrate upon which we can do that.

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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. 

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A transformed Barghouti? What they want is another Arafat. - by Jonathan Tobin

...Barghouti’s credentials rest solely on the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of Jewish men, women and children during the intifada. The political culture of the Palestinians—which is reinforced by a media and an education system promoting hatred of Jews and glorifying terrorism—is what makes Barghouti look good to the Arab street, not the hope he will rise above a record of wanton slaughter.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
21 April '17..

Palestinian internal politics and liberal hostility to Israel came together at The New York Times this month.

The newspaper provoked a firestorm of criticism through its decision to publish an article on the eve of Passover authored by Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned mastermind of a second intifada terror campaign, without mentioning that he is currently serving five life terms for the murder of civilians. But a more important discussion got lost amid the outrage about media bias. The question to be asked about this episode is not whether terrorism is significant enough to be worthy of mention, but why Barghouti is a likely candidate to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Barghouti is currently leading a hunger strike by Palestinian security prisoners in Israel jails. But the real motive for this gesture is promoting Barghouti’s desire to replace the 81-year-old Abbas. Given that Israel has as little interest in releasing Barghouti as Abbas does in having a new election—the current PA leader is serving the 12th year of the four-year presidential term to which he was elected—it’s not clear how he’ll pull off that trick. But the real issue here is the reason for Barghouti’s popularity among supporters of the peace process is very different from the reason for his high standing among Palestinians.

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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. 

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Evidently, inaccurate portrayal of Palestinian leadership is not a ‘significant issue’ at the BBC

...As we see, the BBC does not think that leading audiences to believe that there is one, united Palestinian leadership which regards the two-state solution as its “goal” (while airbrushing from view a proscribed terror organisation that aims to wipe Israel off the map) is a “significant issue” which is liable to hamper understanding of this particular ‘international issue‘.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
15 March '17..





Last month we noted that an insert titled “What is the two-state solution?” had appeared in a number of BBC News website articles published since late December 2016. The same insert continues to appear in BBC content – most recently just last week.

BBC Watch submitted a complaint on the grounds that the insert is inaccurate and misleading to audiences because:

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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. 

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The Palestinian Knife Campaign: A Policy of Limited Liability - by Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser

...that up to this point the Palestinians are quite satisfied with the results of the campaign, and in discussions held by the Fatah Central Committee and other leaderships forums, the decision was made to continue supporting and encouraging this effort unabatedly. The assumption of the leadership is that the terror campaign would continue as long as there is no decision to stop it. This is based on the assessment that the psychological inculcation of the Palestinian youth will guarantee that at any given time there will still be young Palestinians who will decide to go out and stab a Jew. Just like popcorn kernels explode in the microwave at random with no indication when the first will explode and which will not, so are the Palestinian youngsters randomly ready to explode when the indirect message comes from their leadership.

A Palestinian cartoon after the
Har Nof Synagogue attack 

Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
March '16..

Five months into the stabbing terror campaign, the Palestinian leadership keeps evaluating its costs and benefits to date and the prospects for its future. As described by Hirsh Goodman, the decision to embark on this course of action was a result of a combination of several factors:

A. The availability of the stealth terror tool, which is a result of the long-time and ongoing incitement and the inculcation of the people in the pillars of Palestinian national identity,1 with particular impact on children’s psychological make-up.

B. The ease of turning this option into action almost instantly by introducing religiously sensitive issues into the discourse such as the fate of the al-Aqsa mosque.

C. The need to employ this activity to restore international attention to the Palestinian issue and compensate for the damage done by the regional turmoil to Palestinian attempts to present the case that Israel’s attitude is the main reason for the tension between the Islamic and Arab world and the West.

D. The existence of a comprehensive Palestinian strategy adopted in the Sixth Fatah conference in 2009, which is based on a combination of unilateral diplomatic effort in the international arena and “popular resistance,” of which the current stabbing campaign is an example.

E. The assumption that the costs to the Palestinians for this kind of terror campaign will be limited and the benefits will be much greater.

Apparently, not much thought was given by the Palestinian leadership to the potential dilemmas that a long terror campaign may eventually present. One reason is that a previous attempt to embark on such a policy, in the second half of 2014, was quite successful. At that time, PA President Mahmoud Abbas called for such a campaign, raised the al-Aqsa alarm, and quoted a well-known verse from the Quran,2 enabling him to halt the campaign after things went out of control following the November 18, 2014, attack in a Jerusalem synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood where five rabbis were brutally murdered.

The Palestinian leadership was also not worried that the terror campaign would spin out of control and turn into something similar to the second intifada. This option, termed “the militarization of the intifada” (Askarat Al-Intifada) in internal Palestinian debate, was considered to be Hamas’ goal, but eventually was hard to execute because of Israel’s proven capability to thwart most of the terror attempts of this kind. Israeli security cooperation with the PA also helped prevent such violence.

How (and Why) Palestinian Leaders Scare the World - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...Abbas has perfected the art of financial extortion. Every Monday and Thursday, as it were, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president has threatened to resign and/or dissolve the PA. This tactic has a twofold aim: cold hard European and American cash, and a gaze directed away from the PA's turmoil.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
15 January '16..

What do you do when your home has become hell?

If you are Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, you divert attention from the mess as fast as possible.

For a start, Abbas is trying to scare the international community into believing that without increased pressure on Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) will be forced to resort to unilateral measures, such as attempting to create new "facts on the ground" in the West Bank.

Next, Abbas is threatening to renew the Palestinian call for convening an international conference for peace in the Middle East and to step up rhetorical attacks against Israel.

Finally, Abbas has perfected the art of financial extortion. Every Monday and Thursday, as it were, the PA president has threatened to resign and/or dissolve the PA. This tactic has a twofold aim: cold hard European and American cash and a gaze directed away from the PA's turmoil.

Abbas wants the world's eyes on Israel -- and Israel alone. That way, the fierce behind-the-scenes battle for succession that has been raging among the top brass of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank will stay far from the limelight.

This week, Abbas's spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, announced that the Palestinian Authority was coordinating with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in order to create "facts on the ground" to establish a Palestinian state.

This announcement was designed to tighten the international screws on Israel. The threat to "create facts on the ground" was a direct message to the US and the EU that they had better push Israel farther -- and faster -- or the Palestinians would be left with no recourse but to build in Area C of the West Bank, currently under exclusive Israeli control.

Yet Palestinian building in Area C is not just a threat. In fact, and thanks to the financial and logistical aid of the EU, Palestinians have already begun building that project in some parts of the West Bank.

What the PA wants is the following response from the international community: "Oh my God, we must do something to salvage the peace process. We need to put even more pressure on these Israelis before matters get out of hand."

The PA seeks a solution imposed upon Israel by the international community. This has been quite clear for some time, but the PA spokesman's recent announcement leaves no room for doubt. Abbas has no incentive whatsoever to return to the negotiating table with Israel. Why negotiate when Western powers are prepared to do everything to see Israel brought to its knees?

Palestinian leaders' self interest militates against peace - Dexter Van Zile

The unspoken reality is that Palestinian elites dare not forge real peace with Israel because it will expose them as having wasted the lives of their people for decades to acquire something Israel was always ready to offer anyway

Dexter Van Zile..
The Commentator..
03 January '16..

A few weeks ago, the Huffington Post published an article by Omar Alnatour, a pro-Palestinian activist who describes himself as a humanitarian. In the piece, Alnatour rehearses the familiar tropes about the suffering of young children in Gaza during the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas.

The conflict is not a religious one, Alnatour reports, but is really a “secular humanitarian crisis.” In this crisis, Palestinian suffering is all Israel’s fault, Hamas did nothing wrong, and the world really needs to do something to help the Palestinian people.

“Justice” is the way to peace, Alnatour opines.

But when Alnatour talks of “justice” he doesn’t mean the arrest, prosecution and punishment of Hamas leaders who have committed war crimes by targeting civilians with rocket fire or by using hospitals and schools to store their weapons and in so doing putting Palestinian children in harm’s way. For Alnatour, “justice” means the continued demonization of the Jewish state and its leaders.

This is a pretty dishonest view of the conflict. It is Hamas that causes the suffering of the people in Gaza. In its effort to exercise a veto over Jewish self-determination, Hamas starts wars it cannot win with a more powerful state that cannot afford to lose, and in the course of these wars, it attacks Israeli civilians while hiding behind Palestinian civilians.

Hamas then uses the inevitable suffering of the Palestinians that results to score propaganda points against Israel. Alnatour, like a lot of so-called humanitarians, cooperates with this strategy.

For Alnatour, normalization and interfaith dialogue, organized by the Muslim Leadership Initiative is the enemy of justice. “The issue is that when these interfaith discussions are normalized it leads to religion being used as a tool to whitewash Israel's crimes,” he writes.

Alnatour’s hostility toward normalization is the most troublesome aspect of his article. If there is to be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it will not be through the demonization of Israel that Alnatour engages in, but in the normalization he abhors.

By opposing normalization, the establishment of a modus vivendi between the Israelis and the Palestinians, Alnatour is helping to consign yet another generation of Palestinian young people to a lifetime of suffering and isolation.

Normalization is desperately needed if the Palestinians are to have a future, but the problem is this: If Palestinian leaders accept a deal with Israel, it won't be much better than what was offered to the Arabs and Palestinians over the past several decades. It might even be worse.

Once such a deal is achieved, the question that the Palestnians will ask is a simply one: “Why did we send all our children off to die in fruitless wars and terror attacks that gave us nothing more than what was offered to us previously?”