H/t Power Line
Archive for October 17, 2015
Cartoon of the day
October 17, 2015
Muslim medical staff didn’t save Rabbi stabbed to death next to clinic
October 17, 2015Muslim medical staff didn’t save Rabbi stabbed to death next to clinic, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, October 17, 2015
The medical team did not go out to provide treatment to the wounded
The media has tried to emphasize the role of Muslim medical personnel in treating Jewish victims some of the latest Muslim terror attacks.
The reality however is much less politically correct.
Health Minister Ya’akov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) ordered an investigation on Friday to check suspicions that Arab medical staff at a clinic in Jerusalem’s Old City did not go out to help Jewish victims, who were stabbed right next to the clinic.
The incident in question is the brutal murder of Aharon Banita Bennett (21) and Rabbi Nehemia Lavi (41), which took place on Hagai Street on October 3. Bennett’s wife was seriously wounded and his two-year-old son was lightly wounded in the Arab terrorist attack.
While Bennett’s wife’s condition has since improved, it is likely that immediate medical treatment could have lessened the seriousness of her wounds and possibly saved the life of her husband and of Rabbi Lavi, who was stabbed as he came to try and save the young couple and their son.
The Arab-run health clinic located adjacent to the stabbing was open at the time of the attack and medical staff was present inside, reports Channel 2.
However, the Arab medical team did not go out to provide treatment to the wounded, despite their occupational obligations to treat the wounded, just as Magen David Adom (MDA) medics treat Arab terrorists at the scenes of attacks.
This was how it happened.
Miriam Gal, the mother of Benita’s wife Adel, spoke at the funeral to Lau about what her daughter had told her of the incident.
“My daughter tried to run away with a knife in her neck. She tried to escape but they [Palestinians at the scene] wouldn’t let her and shouted at her “hopefully you’ll die too,” recalled Gal who was inconsolable with grief.
“Such cruelty. The Jewish people should not be foolish, wake up. This [the Palestinians] is a nation of murderers. There entire essence is blood, blood, blood, Jewish blood. They have nothing else. Anyone who speaks of peace is an idiot, there is no other word,” she cried.
Health Minister Litzman really stepped up to the plate in another more important way to expose an Abbas lie.
Israel reacted with fury on Thursday to a claim by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas that it had killed a 13-year-old Arab stabbing suspect in a “cold-blooded execution”.
Ahmed Manasra and his cousin Hassan were filmed on CCTV appearing to stab an Israeli teenager, also 13, outside a sweet shop in the East Jerusalem of Pisgat Ze’ev. In another video filmed shortly afterward, Ahmed is seen lying covered in blood on the rails of the Jerusalem tram.
In a televised speech on Wednesday night, Mr Abbas condemned the “occupation and aggression of Israel and its settlers” who “execute our boys in cold blood, as they did with the boy Ahmed Manasra”.
It later emerged that Ahmed is still alive, after Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem released photos and video footage of him being treated, sitting upright in bed with a bandage on his head.
In the video footage filmed at the hospital, readers can see a nearly-healed, eating and drinking 13-year-old Ahmed Manasra — who stabbed and critically wounded a boy two months shy of his 13th birthday and a man age 25 — thus disputing the claim by Abbas that he was “executed.”
On Thursday morning, in an apparent retreat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation circulated an updated version of Mr Abbas’s speech, where the word “execution” was changed to “shooting in cold blood”.
Israel says Ahmed was not shot, but rather hit by a car during the ensuing chase. Hassan, 15, was shot dead by police.
While Hadassah hospital is being credited for it, the real credit goes to Litzman.
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman ordered Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital to allow photographers to the room of the terrorist – in order to prove that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas lied when he claimed that security forces executed him. Litzmann’s order came after the hospital refused to allow photographers,
Hadassah Ein Kerem has had issues for a while, particularly with covering up terrorist attacks. There needs to be accountability, not just in clinics, but in hospitals.
Propaganda!
October 17, 2015Propaganda! Gates of Vienna, MC
So we are told endlessly that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, and that the flood of Islamic warriors knocking at the gates of Europe consists of ‘refugees’ fleeing war. And you know what? It works. Germans (and Swedes) are already swamped, overwhelmed even, but thanks to effective propaganda they do not see the truth before their eyes. However, the indigenous poor are less distracted. They have to live with the filth and violence, but they have no voice; they are shouted down as ‘racist’ and offered no platform.
It is propaganda at play which keeps the Merkels and Obamas of this world in power. Truth is hidden behind a smokescreen of mendacious words: words such as ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘progress’, ‘liberal’, ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’. These words have become Orwellian doublespeak, a stinking hole of corruption, a rotten miasma emanating from a mass grave — ours!
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I get very bored when people tell me (which is often) that “Israel murders Palestinians”. Whilst it is true that Palestinians get murdered in Israel, what this statement fails to comprehend is that Israelis get gaoled for murdering anybody, including Palestinians, as in any civilized Western country, but unlike most Middle Eastern countries including the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The difference here is the relentless propaganda to demonise Israel.
Jews have been demonised down through the centuries; it is a historical fact. Every evil regime persecutes Jews, and in every aspiring evil regime, there is an increase in the persecution of Jews.
That said, most people are not born with Jew-hatred embedded in their psyche. It is placed there by nurture, which is essentially propaganda.
Jews particularly open themselves to negative propaganda. A minority of Jews are arrogant and self-righteous in a singularly narrow and offensive way, as can be seen from recent comments on this website. They, too, are mostly reacting to propaganda. They expect tolerance, but are not prepared to be tolerant in return.
It is this dichotomy which is at the heart of the East-West problem. In the West we are all taught to tolerate other people’s peccadilloes (within reason), but this does not tend to occur elsewhere, and certainly not in the Middle East.
Intolerance is a human emotion based on fear, it is thus a prime target of propaganda. Has a ‘white African” president of the USA increased or decreased racial tensions in the USA?
When a President says one thing (“I am a Christian”) but acts like he is a Muslim, it causes confusion and fear. We then need oceans of propaganda and not a little dissimulation to patch the gaping hole in his credibility. As an outsider, one gets the impression that the real, actual ruler of the USA is the (possibly criminal) Islamic organisation CAIR, and that the citizens of the USA are fed layer upon layer of lies and trickery to ensure the current political status quo. A status quo of a non-violent coup d’état.
Propaganda as such started in the UK. In 1906 the British Government did a secret deal with France calling for the UK to side with France in the case of another war with Germany. It should be remembered that relations between UK and France had been hostile for centuries, and after the Fashoda incident; not particularly warm, so this deal was kept under wraps.
When the time came for fulfilment of this obligation in 1914, the UK government had to ‘cover up’ its motives, so they created the ‘poor little Belgium’ story of rape and pillage by German soldiers.
Thus Britain went to war on the back of lies and deceit, and many young men paid for it with their lives.
In 1919 Edward Bernays basically merged propaganda and commercial advertising, using various manipulative techniques to ‘bend’ public perception on issues such as women smoking in public. The idea was to get you, the victim, to spend your money on something you would not normally spend it on.
With the advent of radio, advertising (and thus propaganda) became big business.
Political propaganda grew alongside of commercial propaganda. The human brain is wired such that we are creatures of habit, and this can be used for propagandistic purposes. If, by constant repetition, a meme, true or false, is embedded in the brain, it becomes a truism. Thus most people can be cynically manipulated, for example, to equate Jews (Israelis) with rats, and subsequently be convinced of the need for pest control. The rest is history.
So we are told endlessly that Islam is a ‘religion of peace’, and that the flood of Islamic warriors knocking at the gates of Europe consists of ‘refugees’ fleeing war. And you know what? It works. Germans (and Swedes) are already swamped, overwhelmed even, but thanks to effective propaganda they do not see the truth before their eyes. However, the indigenous poor are less distracted. They have to live with the filth and violence, but they have no voice; they are shouted down as ‘racist’ and offered no platform.
So how did ‘racism’ become the number one social crime? The answer lies in the spin given to Nazi doctrine in the immediate postwar period. The German people were taught by the Nazi propaganda ministry to ‘blame’ their hardships on Jewish bankers and capitalists, especially the defeat in 1918. Yes, the racism behind this was very old and already embedded in society; all that was needed was for the blame to be projected onto all Jews, not on those who were actually guilty (as, of course, a few were, along with their many non-Jewish colleagues). It was also necessary to demonize Slavs, as it was their lands that were required as lebensraum, the expansion of Aryan Germany into their god-given rightful living space.
At the same time as the Nazis were manipulating Germans, the Russian KGB was penetrating the media and education systems of the free Western world. In the immediate postwar period, the benign racism of the interwar period was amplified, by continuous distortion of the Nazi example, into the number one ‘hate crime’ of postmodernism. Nazi racism was focused on political and social need; modern ‘racism’ is a whites-only crime focused on the political needs of the KGB and its cultural Marxist successors.
The demise of Western cultures is predicated by the fear of the accusation of ‘racism’, with its negative associations with Nazism. This is the overarching victory of modern propaganda. It is this set of distortions that projects guilt onto an otherwise rational target group. I am not guilty of ‘white supremacy’, because the whole premise of the accusation of white supremacy is built upon the idea that we are all born equal, and that all cultures are equal. This concept is unproven, and moreover cannot be proven — except, that is, by propaganda. It is the product of a very clever and cynical set of lies and distortions aimed at bringing down Judeo-Christianity, the very root of Western success.
Part and parcel of modern propaganda technique is the necessity of omission. Whilst facts can be reported as such, the omission of pertinent data can render the report truthful but dishonest. So we see with the reporting in Germany of conditions in areas invaded by the latest wave of migrants. How is the Goebbels-era reporting of Jewish issues any different to the Merkel era reporting of immigration issues? One was negative and invented lies, the other was positive — because it left out anything derogatory — thus creating an untruth. The Goebbels lies preceded a war. What will be the result of the Merkel distortions?
The German people have just been shafted to the tune of hundreds of billions of Euros: the cost of open borders. And over the next ten years Merkel’s migrant lies are going to cost many more trillions of euros. One guess as to who will have to pay.
Hitler’s socialism was very expensive, for which reason he had to acquire the gold reserves of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. How will Merkel cope?
It is propaganda at play which keeps the Merkels and Obamas of this world in power. Truth is hidden behind a smokescreen of mendacious words: words such as ‘hope’, ‘change’, ‘progress’, ‘liberal’, ‘Democrat’ and ‘Republican’. These words have become Orwellian doublespeak, a stinking hole of corruption, a rotten miasma emanating from a mass grave — ours!
Sweden Close to Collapse
October 17, 2015Sweden Close to Collapse, Gatestone Institute, Ingrid Carlqvist, October 17, 2015
- If the wave of migrants keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country. That there is, in fact, an exchange of populations going on, should be clear in any sober assessment.
- The final consequence of… Sweden’s immigration policy is that the economy will collapse — because who is going to pay for it all? And economic breakdowns, once they happen, always happen very fast.” — Lars Hedegaard.
- In the last two weeks, more than 1,000 “unaccompanied refugee children” have arrived from Germany via ferry; more than half of them have now vanished and are listed as missing.
- For the last few weeks, the central train station in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmö, has been overrun with migrants; the volunteers that for the first few days showed up with food, water and clothes now seem to have lost interest.
- It will not be long until the Swedes realize that the state will not look after them. The country that just 20 years ago was considered one of the safest and most affluent in the world, is now in danger of becoming a failed state.
Sweden is fast approaching a complete collapse. More and more municipalities are raising the alarm that if the migrants keep coming at this pace, the government can no longer guarantee normal service to its citizens. In addition, ominous statements from government officials have left Swedes in fear of what tomorrow may bring. If the migrant wave keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country.
At a press conference October 9, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said that Sweden is in a state of crisis. However, when asked to clarify what he meant by this, Löfven was unable to produce a single coherent sentence.
Three ministers appeared by the Prime Minister’s side at the hastily summoned press conference, which came on the heels of an extraordinary government meeting. The purpose of the press conference seems to have been to convey two messages:
- To explain to the world and the Swedish people that Sweden is facing “one of the largest humanitarian efforts in Swedish history.”
- That there is no more housing available, and migrants should be prepared to live in tents.
During the question period after the ministers’ speeches, journalist Tomas Ramberg of EkotPublic Radio asked: “You say that Sweden is preparing for a crisis situation, what do you mean by those dramatic words?”
Stefan Löfven’s reply was incomprehensible:
“Yes, well first of all we, we are in the middle of what I mean seriously when I’m saying, when I express a, a big thank you to all the people doing such a great job, because it is a humanitarian effort, it’s just as the Minister for Justice and Migration just said. What we are actually doing is that we are saving lives when people who come from bombs, from, from killing, from oppression, their lives are shattered. We, we help them and that is a, that is a great humanitarian effort, and of course now that we can see the number of people who need it, that are seeking protection, then it is one of the greatest humanitarian efforts. And that we are facing a crisis situation, that is in part why I, we are outlining today that we are also preparing for a situation where we may need to house people in tents, because we stand up with the humanitarian refugee policy, right of asylum, but we can now also see that we cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are more coming than ever in such a short time, and we need to provide a roof over their heads. Then it is — other things may be required.”
However, the fact that the government is now talking about housing migrants in tents, may be a signal that Sweden, despite everything, may not want to be on the front lines of the “humanitarian” battle anymore, after all. The prospect of spending an ice-cold Swedish winter in a tent may make migrants choose countries other than Sweden. If not, a complete collapse of the Swedish system is imminent.
In 2014, the Danish historian and social commentator Lars Hedegaard prophetically remarked in the book “Farliga ord“(Dangerous Words), that the economic breakdown of a nation always happens quickly and unexpectedly:
“If there is any lesson to be drawn from history, it is that what you do not think will happen, does. Time and again. The final consequence of the West and, above all, Sweden’s immigration policy is that the economy will collapse — because who is going to pay for it all? And economic breakdowns, once they happen, always happen very fast.”
Right now, the Swedish government is borrowing money abroad to pay for immigration. But that amount is not enough. On October 8, the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKL) warned that municipalities need to increase the tax rate by 2%. The average municipal income tax is already 32%, on top of which many Swedes also pay a federal income tax. A 2% rise in the tax rate would mean 15,000 kronor ($1,825) more in taxes each year for the average household.
High-ranking politicians and officials are also saying the situation is extremely grim. On October 1, Minister for Home Affairs Anders Ygeman said that the current wave of immigrants will lead to “huge economic strains;” and a few days later Immigration Service Director General Anders Danielsson explained that “within the framework of the system we all know, we are now approaching the end of the road.” Statements such as these have never been heard before in Sweden, especially in connection with the “sacred” issue of migration. Until now, Swedes have perpetually been told that we live in a rich country that has no problem handling all asylum seekers who want to come here.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (left) said last week that Sweden is in a state of crisis. Pictured at right, the results of rioting in a Stockholm suburb, December 2014.
In the shadow the 1.5 million migrants expected to arrive this year in Germany, the EU’s largest country (population 81 million), migrants are also pouring into a rather smaller Sweden. Geographically Sweden is large, but consists mainly of forests and wilderness, and fewer than 10 million people live in the country. Until 2010, Sweden took in about 25,000 migrants a year. However, in 2010, then Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt made a deal with pro-immigration Green Party, (Miljöpartiet) — by his own admission to punish voters for allowing the anti-mass-immigration Sweden Democrats party (Sverigedemokraterna) into parliament.
Reinfeldt’s deal opened the immigration floodgates. In 2014, 81,000 people sought asylum in Sweden; and 33,500 were granted asylum. However, as many of the immigrants subsequently brought over their relatives, that figure substantially increased. Last year, 110,000 people were granted residency status in Sweden. One should add to this figure an unknown number of illegal aliens.
There is now talk of 180,000 asylum seekers coming to Sweden in 2015. That number is more than twice as many as the year before. If half of them are granted asylum, and they each bring over three relatives, we are talking about 270,000 new immigrants to Sweden — within one year. Over 8000 people arrived just last week, 1,716 of whom were so-called “unaccompanied refugee children.”
Swedes who only follow the mainstream media get the impression that all the migrants arriving are war refugees from Syria, but the number of Syrians is actually less than half of the total: 2,864 people last week claimed to be from Syria. 1,861 claimed to be from Iraq, and 1,820 from Afghanistan. Clearly, many people from countries that are not at war are taking their chances and applying for asylum in Sweden; but this is something about which the mainstream media does not see fit to inform its followers.
That there is an exchange of populations going on, should be clear in any sober assessment. The Swedish economist Tino Sanandaji (of Iranian-Kurdish descent, and therefore tougher than most Swedes, who, if they criticize the immigration policy, are immediately accused of racism) writes on his blog that Swedes could soon be in the minority in their own country:
“1,000-1,500 asylum seekers a day for 15 years equals 5.5 to 8.2 million asylum seekers. At the end of 2014, the Statistical Central Bureau, SCB, calculated that 21.5% of the Swedish population were of foreign descent: 2.1 million, out of 9.7 million. The number of people of Swedish descent — born in Sweden with two parents born in Sweden — has been stable at about 7.7 million and is expected to remain stable or increase slightly due to birth surplus. If those of foreign descent increase their number by about 5.6 million, they will become the majority.”
One of the municipalities that has been flooded with migrants is Trelleborg (population 43,000), located on Sweden’s southernmost coast. Over 100 “unaccompanied refugee children” arrive from Germany via ferry on a typical day. During the last two weeks, more than 1000 such youths have been registered; more than half of them have now vanished and are listed as missing. No one knows why, or where they have gone. Add to this 13,000 adult asylum seekers.
Impromptu temporary lodgings have been created in sports centers, ice rinks, and at the Sturup airport hotel, to name a few.
Trelleborg has written a desperate letter of appeal for help to the government, just as, a few weeks ago, the Örkelljunga municipality did in vain. The mayor and the Municipal Director of Trelleborg, who signed the letter on October 1, wrote:
“In the past, many asylum seekers have taken the route through Denmark to Malmö, but this changed about two weeks ago. From September 10 until the morning of October 1, 14,100 asylum seekers arrived in Trelleborg by ferry. There is no indication that the pace is slowing; if anything it is continuously increasing. On Tuesday, September 22, Trelleborg received word from the Immigration Service that the municipality where children and young people arrive is by law the authority that is required to provide housing, care and living expenses, until such time as the Immigration Service decides upon a designated municipality. … Trelleborg has quickly ended up in a situation where the regular services to the community are at great risk of being affected. … By writing this letter, we would like to bring to your attention the enormous strain we now find ourselves under.”
Apparently, the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, has since been in contact with Trelleborg’s mayor via telephone to discuss possible solutions. On October 9, the Immigration Service decided that Trelleborg should be exempt as a designated municipality for unaccompanied children. However, it is unclear how this will alleviate Trelleborg’s plight as far as the new arrivals go. The only concrete help so far has come from some of the neighboring municipalities, who have opened up facilities to house some of the Trelleborg migrants.
Malmö, about 18 miles from Trelleborg, is also in dire straits. For the last few weeks, the central train station in Sweden’s third largest city has been overrun with migrants, and the volunteers that showed up for the first few days with food, water and clothes now seem to have lost interest. The daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet summed up the desperate situation in Malmö, where even the city’s empty jail was considered (and rejected) as possible housing for refugee children. It now looks more like a possibility for adult refugees.
The Social Democratic mayor of Filipstad, Per Gruvberger, also recently raised the alarm that his municipality of 6,000 people will not be able to provide schooling and childcare for the 1,100 asylum seekers now assigned to his municipality.
The reply of the Minister for Justice and Migration, Morgan Johansson, to this cry for help was: “If need be, Filipstad will just have to expand its operations.”
This insensitive statement from Johansson caused the Mayor of neighboring Årjäng, Daniel Schützer, to go ballistic. He wrote about his fellow party member on Facebook:
“Pardon my French, but Morgan Johansson is totally f—ing stupid. ‘Expand,’ he says. It is not f—ing bricks and planks that we are lacking, it is teachers!!!!”
The Immigration Service, which is tasked with reviewing the asylum seekers’ reasons for immigrating, is understandably swamped with work. Even before the latest “refugee crisis” — and despite 1,200 new employees being hired last year — its staff is struggling. The employees’ union is now raising the alarm, concerning more and more incidents of violence, vandalism and suicide attempts — this year (up to August), 1,021 such incidents were reported.
“The work situation for the entire authority is very strained. The pressure is enormous. The work environment has deteriorated severely,” said Sanna Norblad, local chairperson of the ST union, to daily Norrköpings Tidningar.
While all this plays out, large portions of the Swedish people watch in horror from the sidelines and wonder when the unavoidable collapse will occur. At the same time, a surprisingly large portion of the citizenry still overconfidently believe that “Daddy State” will make everything all right. This a very Swedish view, like the wishes of children, that Peter Santesson, head of polling institute Demoskop, wrote about on the website Dagens Opinion. Santesson states that the Swedes have an unusually high level of trust in the social order, and that they are convinced that “somewhere higher up, there is always someone smarter and more informed, taking responsibility and making sure everything works.” If the government officials turn out to be incapable of handling the refugee chaos they themselves have created, it could be disastrous. Santesson continues,
“Responsible decision makers need to ponder the trust the people have now bestowed on them, and they need to handle this trust with care in this difficult crisis. If the people’s confidence is betrayed by them turning out not to be able to handle the situation – if ‘Sweden’ turns out to be insufficient as a miracle cure and the crisis becomes too much to handle — the outcome could be political and social consequences reaching far beyond the issue of immigration.”
The blogger Johan Westerholm, a Social Democrat who is critical of the government, points out in an October 7 titled “System infarction in the Immigration System,” that in addition to those who are already in Sweden, we need to add those who are not granted asylum in Norway and Finland, and will therefore be sent back to the last country they were in — Sweden. Considering that Finland rejects 60% of asylum applications, it is fair to assume that during the coming weeks, the chaos will only escalate.
Westerholm writes that the situation in Malmö is “out of control,” and states that we do not have any idea who those arriving in Sweden are:
“A very large group of administrators [at the Immigration Service] do not even know the designated terror organizations, and then there are the sympathizers — people who, on principal, would never file a report to the Immigration Service security department, for ideological reasons. A large group consists of those who are scared into silence. In an organization characterized by fear and stress, to do nothing is a surefire way to keep your job. If a report of suspicion is filed anyway, typically nothing happens. If the life and health of the terrorist is threatened, as is often the situation, the person gets to stay. Initially he is given a temporary residence permit, but in practice, this turns out to be permanent.”
The 152 asylum seekers reported to the Security Service so far this year as possible threats to national security, are thus most likely just the tip of the iceberg.
The Swedes who have already lost faith in the authorities and the politicians are now preparing for the unthinkable — that their once so secure society is about to collapse. On the website 72timmar.se, the Civil Contingencies Agency informs the public on “our five most basic needs: Water, food, heat, sleep and security.” The readers are told to keep water and canned goods at home, and make sure they can stay warm.
“Prepping” is becoming more common in Sweden. Last summer, the daily Svenska Dagbladetran a story on the first Swedish online store for preppers, and that interest was huge. According to the polling institute Sifo, until recently, seven out of ten Swedes have been completely unprepared for a crisis that knocks out the power supply and thereby the infrastructure. The owner of the online store, Fredrik Qvarnström, told the paper that, in his estimation, the Swedes are the worlds most poorly prepared for a crisis:
“There is lot of talk about the greenhouse effect and economic crisis. People seem to be aware that there are problems, but I do not think they know how vulnerable we really are. We rely on the state to take care of us, as it has in the past.”
It will not be long until the Swedes realize that the state will not look after them. The country that just 20 years ago was considered one of the safest and most affluent in the world, is now in danger of becoming a failed state.
Kerry, Israeli Arabs and the Separation Delusion
October 17, 2015Kerry, Israeli Arabs and the Separation Delusion Why Israel will never be able to separate from the Palestinians.
October 16, 2015 Caroline Glick
Source: Kerry, Israeli Arabs and the Separation Delusion | Frontpage Mag
Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
Israel’s political leaders have rightly expressed anger at the US State Department’s hostile characterizations of the Palestinian terrorist onslaught. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claims, parroted by his spokesmen, that Israel is either entirely to blame for Palestinian terrorism or shares the blame equally with the Palestinians, are baseless lies.
Kerry and his spokesmen have alleged that the current Palestinian convulsion of murderous violence is a product of “a massive increase in settlements.” Yet as Haaretz reported this week, Israel has built fewer homes for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria since 2009, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (and President Barack Obama) entered office, than it had since 1995. The steep increase in the Jewish population in the areas is almost entirely the result of Jewish women having babies.
The other accusations the State Department has leveled against Israel – that it incites violence and engages in terrorism – are so obscene that there is no point in trying to set the record straight. Quite simply, an administration comfortable with libeling Israel in this way doesn’t want to know the truth.
While at this point it is abundantly clear that Kerry like the administration he serves has an unpleasant, irrational obsession with the Jewish state, it’s hard to shake the conclusion that there is more going on here than simply opposition to Israel.
For instance his claim this week that “Unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” is more an assault on reality generally than on Israel in particular.
Kerry, like the Obama administration as a whole, is angry at reality because at least as far as Israel and its Palestinian neighbors are concerned, reality shares no common ground with the administration’s assumption of Israeli guilt.
There is no chance that Palestinian Authority Chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas will agree to make peace with Israel. We know this not only because Abbas rejected peace and a Palestinian state when then-prime minister Ehud Olmert offered him both in 2008. We know this as well because three years ago Abbas rejected the idea of a negotiated settlement and opted instead to use the UN to gain international recognition of a Palestinian state at war with Israel.
For the past several years, Obama and his advisers have collaborated with Abbas’s UN strategy by refusing to commit themselves to vetoing a UN Security Council resolution mandating the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In so doing, they have shown that they want Israel to vacate Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria no matter what.
If we learn nothing else from the current violence, we must learn that the idea we can separate from the Palestinians is a delusion.
The current round of Palestinian terrorism, like last year’s offensive, has been largely undertaken by Arabs who live in Israel – either Israeli citizens from the Galilee or permanent residents from Jerusalem. The natural response that many Israelis have had to the fact that it is our fellow citizens and residents of our capital city that are perpetrating the violence has been to hope that a way can be found to finally separate from them.
While understandable, this visceral response to Arab-Israeli terrorism is based on a misunderstanding of reality.
Israelis who preach separation from the Palestinians as a strategic goal claim that the reason the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem – like the Palestinians of Gaza and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon before them – oppose Israel is because Israel controls the territory they live in. Accordingly, they argue, if Israel quits these areas – as it withdrew from Gaza and south Lebanon in the past – the Palestinians will stop their attacks.
They are wrong.
Arab Israelis and Jerusalem residents aren’t attacking Jews because Israel exercises sovereignty over the areas they live in. They are attacking Israel because like the Palestinians in Judea, and Samaria, they watch Palestinian and pan-Arab television, and like the Palestinians they use Facebook.
In other words, the 1.7 million Arabs inside sovereign Israel, and the 1.7 million Palestinians in Judea and Samaria have been subjected to the same campaign of incitement and solicitation of terrorism against Jews over the past year and to the same 22 years of indoctrination to hate Jews and seek Israel’s destruction. The geographic borders separating these two groups have no impact whatsoever on their hearts and minds.
The question isn’t how they feel, but whether or not they can act on their feelings.
The reason that the Arab Israelis who have been moved to murder Jews do so with knives and pistols rather than missiles and suicide vests is that Israel controls Jerusalem and the Galilee. Israel’s sole security control over its territory enables the security cabinet to decide to deploy security forces throughout the country and to place roadblocks at the entrances to all the major Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem without fear of armed opposition.
Likewise, the reason the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria haven’t renewed their mass casualty bombings from a decade ago despite the Palestinian and pan-Arab incitement is that beginning in Operation Defensive Shield in April 2002, the IDF retook control over the Palestinian population centers from the PA.
Today Palestinian terrorist cells operating in the areas know that if they turn their guns on Israelis again, the IDF will immediately take their guns and arrest or kill them. Had Israel implemented then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s plan to unilaterally withdraw from Judea and Samaria in 2007, Israel would be facing a catastrophic situation today.
The main difference between the Arabs of Israel and of Judea and Samaria today is not their intentions, but the fact that in Israel proper, the government is the sole governing authority, while in Judea and Samaria, Israel shares sovereign control with the PLO-controlled PA. Two unique military challenges arise from this distinction. First, unlike the situation in Israel proper, in Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians are armed to the teeth. The quantities of firearms and explosives in Judea and Samaria are dizzying.
Since 2007, when his forces were thrown out of Gaza, Abbas has viewed Hamas as a greater threat to his regime than Israel. As a result, he has cooperated with Israel in fighting Hamas and has not ordered his US-trained forces to turn their guns on the IDF and Israeli civilians.
So since Israel’s ability to operate in Judea and Samaria at will has kept Hamas at bay, and Abbas’s belief that Hamas is a greater threat than Israel has kept him in check, Israel’s security control over the areas has prevented both Hamas and the PA from waging a renewed terrorist offensive against Israel.
Unfortunately, this state of affairs will not last much longer. In all likelihood, at some point in the near to medium term, the PA’s threat assessment will change. The US-trained PA security forces will come to view Hamas as less of a threat than Israel.
The main reason for this changed assessment is incitement. Like the rest of Palestinian society, the PA’s security services have been marinated in genocidal Jew hatred at the hands of Abbas’s media and Al Jazeera for the past 22 years. And as we see with the Jerusalem Arabs who run over Jews and then butcher them with meat cleavers, 22 years of indoctrination leaves a mark.
But that’s not the only reason that the PA as we know it is about to disappear. In the not too distant future, Abbas will either retire or pass away.
The PLO chief who incites Palestinians to murder Jews while owing his life and regime to the IDF which keeps Hamas and his Fatah challengers at bay is 80 years old. Just a month ago he resigned for the 10th time.
None of Abbas’s possible successors will be likelier to lead the Palestinians to peaceful coexistence with Israel than Abbas has been.
Moreover, none of them is likely to succeed in maintaining the PA as a coherent regime throughout Judea and Samaria. It is far likelier that after Abbas departs, the PA will fall apart and each Palestinian population center will be ruled by a local clan or militia. Under such a scenario, the current distinctions between Hamas and Fatah affiliates are likely to fall by the wayside.
Here it is important to note that Israel has no interest in prolonging Abbas’s tenure. To the contrary, his record in office makes clear that he has personally caused great damage to Israel.
For while Abbas owes his life and regime to Israel, he leads the diplomatic war against Israel in the international arena.
Abbas’s refusal – despite his repeated resignations – to vacate his position, along with claims by Israeli officeholders that he serves as a moderating force in Palestinian society, have placed Israel in a situation where it is forced to participate in the diplomatic war against itself.
After all, if Abbas is moderate and legitimate, then his incitement against Israel is similarly legitimate.
Israel’s reluctance to abandon the fiction of Abbas’s moderation makes it impossible for it to prepare for the day after he disappears.
Such preparations would involve setting the stage for expanded Israeli control over the territories.
Steps to this end include limiting the transfer of weapons and additional Palestinian forces to Judea and Samaria. To this end, Israel must begin explaining to Congress that continued US funding of the Palestinian security forces endangers Israel.
So, too, Israel must pounce on any opportunity to seize weapons in Judea and Samaria.
The more weapons Israel takes control over today, the fewer it will need to seize in the future.
Perhaps more important than any specific step that it can and should take to minimize the long-term dangers posed by the heavily armed Palestinian militias and security forces, our political and military leaders simply need to recognize that Palestinian society in Judea and Samaria is about to undergo major political changes. The better Israel recognizes the dynamics at play, the better prepared it will be to shape the new reality ways that minimize threats to our long-term security.
No, Israel cannot change what is in the hearts and minds of the Palestinians, or of its Arab citizens and permanent residents. And it is because of this that separation is a chimera.
All we can do is limit their ability to act on the hatred that has been instilled in them for the past 22 years.
As for Kerry and his delusions, we have no choice but to allow him to fail to make peace again. But while we are at it, we need to recognize that given that he lives in his world of delusion, no concession Israel makes in the real world will satisfy him.
‘France advancing plan to deploy international observers at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount’
October 17, 2015France advancing plan to deploy international observers at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount’
10/17/2015 15:06
Le Figaro says France drafting presidential statement on the matter; Israel says that it would never agree to such a deployment.
France is drafting a ‘presidential statement’ in order to advance a plan to station international observers at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to ensure that the status quo at the site is preserved, French daily Le Figaro reported on Saturday, quoting French diplomatic sources.
French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre said, at an emergency meeting on Friday of the UN Security Council on the ongoing violence between Israel and the Palestinians, that he would circulate a draft statement to the council that would appeal for calm and restraint and for a revival of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and for maintaining the status quo at the Temple Mount.
Statements by the 15-member council must be agreed unanimously.
The unrest in recent weeks has been triggered in part by Palestinians’ anger over what they claim to be increased Jewish encroachment at the Jerusalem holy site which is revered by both the Muslim and Jewish faithful.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly over the past few weeks that Israel has not changed the status quo on the Temple Mount, nor has it any intention of doing so, characterizing Arab charges to the contrary as “lies” and “deceit.”
Jews revere the Temple Mount as its holiest site, the place where two biblical Jewish temples once stood. The area, is also home to the Dome of the Rock, and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which is the third holiest site in Islam
On Friday, Israel’s envoy to the UN Danny Danon said at the security council meeting that Israel will never agree to the stationing of international forces at the site.
“If you are serious about promoting peace, if you are really committed to advancing co-existence in our region, make a clear statement against the incitement that fuels terror, support direct negotiations,” Danon said on Friday, addressing the international community and the UN Security Council.
Danon also made clear that Israel will not agree to any international presence on Temple Mount since “any such intervention would violate the decades long status quo”, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had repeatedly committed to maintaining.
The Palestinian representative at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he wanted the council to consider deploying an international force at the al-Aqsa mosque to protect Palestinian worshipers.
“It is the responsibility of the United Nations and the international community and Security Council to provide protection for our people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” Mansour told the council.
The security council is to hold a ministerial-level debate on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis on Thursday to try to press for a de-escalation, AFP reported on Saturday.
Danielle Ziri, Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.
Saudis and Iran vie in cash tug-‘o-war behind Palestinian terror. US sidelined
October 17, 2015Source: Saudis and Iran vie in cash tug-‘o-war behind Palestinian terror. US sidelined
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 17, 2015, 2:23 PM (IDT)
The wave of Palestinian terror plaguing Israel in the last two weeks is in fact being quietly tossed back and forth by two opposing external forces, debkafile’s intelligence sources reveal: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are laying out large wads of cash to various Palestinian groups, especially the Fatah’s Tanzim militia, to stay out of the terror offensive. The money is channeled through Israel and Jordan, which also provide intelligence on which groups are worth financing to counter the efforts of Tehran and Beirut to keep the violent flames high.
Israeli and Jordanian government and security officialdom at the highest levels are working hard to remove bureaucratic obstacles and keep the money flowing in the right direction.
Along with aid, Iran and Hizballah are sending directives to the Palestinian recipients on how and when to jump the terror offensive from one stage to the next. For instance, Saturday morning, Oct. 17, following Israel’s partial success in slowing the flood of Palestinian knife attacks, Hamas media instructed terror activists to switch from stabbing attacks to running people down with vehicles, as a more effective way of killing larger numbers.
The backstage cash contest between the Saudi-UAE partners and the Iranian-Hizballah duo is strongly determining the course of the Palestinian terror offensive, with the effect of sidelining Washington and further disempowering Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The Obama administration had in any case given up on leverage to sway these events by declining to ask Tehran to restrain extremist Palestinian violence. That was part of the price exacted from Israel for its failed fight to stop Obama obtaining a nuclear accord with Iran.
Hence, Washington’s even-handed comments which so incensed Jerusalem this week, when Secretary John Kerry linked the outbreak of violence to “massive settlement building” and the State Department referred to Israel’s resort to “excessive force.”
Still, President Obama and Kerry Friday, Oct. 16 backtracked up to a point after being taxed with unprecedented heat by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and charged with utterances that could be construed as support for terrorism.Obama and Kerry then turned around and leaked to mainstream media negative innuendo about over-the-top Israeli actions for reining in terror. One report, for instance, noted that “both sides have traded blame about who is responsible for the spate of violence;” others highlighted the deaths of Palestinian terrorists and vindicated their violence.
Israel’s international reputation undoubtedly suffers from this stratagem, while at the same time, it contributes nothing construcive toward solving the crisis.
Mahmoud Abbas, even if he for once dispensed with prior conditions for a meeting with Netanyahu, has even less to contribute. His influence on the Palestinian street is at rock bottom, even after his stuttering support for the ongoing Palestinian “Al Aqsa struggle.”
His presence in Ramallah is ignored by the two Arab governments working to stifle Palestinian terror. They prefer to go directly to Jordan’s King Abdullah and Netanyahu and leave him in the cold. The stakes of the contest between Saudi Arabia Jordan and the UAE, on the one hand, and Iran and Hizballah, on the other, are high indeed – not just for the security of Israel but also of Jordan as well as its stability, if radicalized Palestinians are not subdued quickly.
The Obama administration’s policy of disengagement from the burning conflicts of the region and its lost points in Jerusalem have left the US empty-handed for taking any hand in the current Israel-Palestinian crisis of terror. It’s just as well that the government in Jerusalem entertains no illusions about anything useful coming out of from Netanyahu’s encounter with Kerry in Berlin next Wednesday, Oct. 21.
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