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Netanyahu: Palestinians’ ‘No Jews’ Demand is ‘Ethnic Cleansing for Peace’

September 9, 2016

Netanyahu: Palestinians’ ‘No Jews’ Demand is ‘Ethnic Cleansing for Peace’, PJ Media, Bridget Johnson, September 9, 2016

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu poses for a photograph with pupils on the first day of school in the Israeli Arab town of Tamra on Sept. 1, 2016. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at calls for Israelis to accept an “ethnic cleansing for peace” deal with the Palestinians, who have long demanded any settlement expel Jews from Palestinian territories.

“I’m sure many of you have heard the claim that Jewish communities in Judea Samaria, the West Bank, are an obstacle to peace,” Netanyahu said in a video. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Thursday that the United States is “concerned that things might be moving in the opposite direction given, on the one hand, and we’ve expressed our concern about this, ongoing Israeli settlement activity, but equally, we’ve been troubled by the fact that — or by the incitement to violence.”

“I’ve always been perplexed by this notion” of settlements being the problem, Netanyahu said. “Because no one would seriously claim that the nearly two million Arabs living inside Israel – that they’re an obstacle to peace. That’s because they aren’t. On the contrary.”

“Israel’s diversity shows its openness and readiness for peace. Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one pre-condition: No Jews. There’s a phrase for that: It’s called ethnic cleansing. And this demand is outrageous.”

The prime minister added that “it’s even more outrageous that the world doesn’t find this outrageous.”

“Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage. Ask yourself this: Would you accept ethnic cleansing in your state? A territory without Jews, without Hispanics, without blacks Since when is bigotry a foundation for peace?” he said. “At this moment, Jewish schoolchildren in Judea Samaria are playing in sandboxes with their friends. Does their presence make peace impossible? I don’t think so.”

“I think what makes peace impossible is intolerance of others. Societies that respect all people are the ones that pursue peace. Societies that demand ethnic cleansing don’t pursue peace.”

Netanyahu said he envisions “a Middle East where young Arabs and young Jews learn together, work together, live together side by side in peace.”

Categories: Ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israel settlements, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution
Tags: Ethnic cleansing, Israel, Israeli settlements, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution

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Column One: Mahmoud Abbas and other Soviet ghosts

September 9, 2016

Column One: Mahmoud Abbas and other Soviet ghosts, Jerusalem Post, Caroline B. Glick, September 8, 2016

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In 1982 Abbas received a doctorate from the Patrice Lumumba University – or KGB U – in Moscow. According to KGB defectors, 90 percent of the university’s faculty and staff received their paychecks from the KGB. Its purpose was to train KGB agents from the developing world, including terrorists. Abbas’s fellow alumni included master terrorist Carlos the Jackal and future Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rather than devote his energies to murdering Israelis, along the lines of the subversive program Ceausescu presented to Arafat, Abbas’s main focus was the subversion of the European and the Israeli Left.

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Channel 1’s report Wednesday that in 1983, current Palestinian Authority Chairman and PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas served as a KGB agent is hardly the story of the year, but it does remind us of certain half-forgotten facts about the Cold War that are becoming ever more relevant today.

The PLO’s close and servile relationship with the KGB was first exposed in a systematic way in 1987, with the publication of Red Horizons: Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief, the exposé of Soviet and Romanian Cold War operations written by former Romanian intelligence chief Lt.-Gen. Ion Pacepa. Pacepa, who defected to the US in 1978 after serving as the head of the DIE – Romania’s KGB – was the highest ranking intelligence officer from the Soviet bloc to ever defect.

In his book, Pacepa revealed that “the PLO was dreamt up by the KGB.”

Pacepa explained how Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, at the direction of Moscow, convinced Yasser Arafat to employ political warfare, centered on phony protestations that he had abandoned terrorism, to weaken the West’s resolve to defend itself and to cause Israel to doubt its own legitimacy.

Wednesday’s Channel 1 report on Abbas was based on new revelations from the Mitrokhin Archive. Vasili Mitrokhin was a senior archivist in the KGB who surreptitiously copied KGB documents for many years and hid his copies in his home. In 1991 Mitrokhin defected to Britain and took his archive of 25,000 copies of documents with him.

In 2004, the second volume of his edited archive was published. The volume, titled, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, focused on the KGB’s efforts to use the Third World as a strategic weapon in its battle against the West. The volume devotes two chapters to the KGB’s campaign against Israel.

Mitrokhin revealed that for the KGB, Israel was a target of subversion second only in importance to the US. The KGB fielded multiple political agents on the Israeli Left and multiple Palestinian agents in the PLO’s terrorist nexus.

According to the Channel 1 report, Abbas began his official service for the KGB in 1983.

In truth his KGB ties were already longstanding by 1983.

In 1982 Abbas received a doctorate from the Patrice Lumumba University – or KGB U – in Moscow. According to KGB defectors, 90 percent of the university’s faculty and staff received their paychecks from the KGB. Its purpose was to train KGB agents from the developing world, including terrorists. Abbas’s fellow alumni included master terrorist Carlos the Jackal and future Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Abbas received a doctorate for a thesis denying the Holocaust. That is, he used the cover of academia to vilify the Jewish state and deny Jewish history and suffering – a practice that has been his stock in trade in trade ever since.

Rather than devote his energies to murdering Israelis, along the lines of the subversive program Ceausescu presented to Arafat, Abbas’s main focus was the subversion of the European and the Israeli Left.

Until the mid-1970s, Arab terrorists were unable to make inroads in Israel because there were no significant political forces in Israeli society that questioned the justice and morality of the state or saw the PLO as anything other than a terrorist organization bent on the annihilation of Israel and the massacre of its citizens.

The situation changed with the rise of the Likud and the Right to power in 1977. As the Likud supplanted Labor as the largest party in Israel, the far Left became more susceptible to subversion.

Abbas focused his efforts on developing ties to the Israeli far Left. His efforts culminated in the 1993 Oslo peace deal which Abbas negotiated with Israeli leftist activists affiliated with then-foreign minister Shimon Peres through his deputy Yossi Beilin.

The PLO’s success in convincing the Rabin- Peres government that it had abandoned its goal of annihilating Israel came two years after the demise of the Soviet Union. In other words, the KGB’s campaign of anti-Western subversion outlived the Soviet Union.

Indeed it carries on with ever greater force and consequence. Today, the subversive campaigns that first bore fruits in the Vietnam War have brought about a situation where increasingly, Western elites cannot accept the basic morality of their societies.

Consider the case of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Last month Kaepernick caused a public outcry when he refused to stand up for the US national anthem at the beginning of a football game. Kaepernick defended himself by arguing that the US is immoral. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said.

Rather than defend the US against his assault and insist that its symbols required respect, President Barack Obama said only that Kaepernick had a right to his opinion.

Then there is Germany. This week Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party came in third place in regional elections on Merkel’s home turf behind the far-right, anti-immigration AfD party.

Merkel’s political collapse owes entirely to her refusal to budge on her open border policies.

That policy enabled more than a million, predominantly Muslim, immigrants to stream into Germany last year. An additional 300,000 are expected this year.

Merkel’s associates claim that she operates under the conviction that Germany’s Nazi past precludes any attempt to protect German society from Muslim immigrants. For Merkel, Germany is inherently immoral and therefore has no right to defend its identity or culture.

The sense among Western elites that Western culture and history as a whole are morally impaired has dampened their concern about their future. This diminished commitment to securing their societies into the future is most apparent in the West’s fertility rates, which have been below replacement rate for more than a decade. Last year for the first time, deaths in Europe outnumbered births.

The situation is similarly fraught on the other side of the former Iron Curtain. Russian society was economically and culturally broken by the Soviet defeat in the Cold War and by its post- Cold War leadership’s inability to present a life-affirming vision for a new Russia.

In some ways, post-Cold War Russia is the mirror image of the subverted West. While Western leftists insist on adopting the socialist economics of swelled welfare states, which given demographic realities are unsustainable in the long-term, to expiate their guilt for capitalism and colonialism, Russia’s leaders have largely abandoned their people to their fate.

Russia spends a bit more than a third of what OECD countries spend on public health. And the low investment shows.

According to the World Health Organization, a third of all deaths in Russia in 2012 were caused by alcohol. Russian male life expectancy is 64 – lower than it was a hundred years ago.

Drug addiction rates are soaring, as are HIV infection rates.

Like the Europeans, Russians have lost interest in the future, which increasingly will not include a Russia. With fertility rates below replacement levels, the UN estimates that by 2060, Russia’s working age population will have shrunk by 15 percent.

Due to the scarcity of workers, like Europe, Russia is experiencing massive, predominantly Muslim immigration. Russian immigration levels are second only to the US. In response, xenophobia is a large and growing social force in Russia.

According to David Satter, author of the recently released, The Less You Know, the Better You Sleep: Russia’s Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin, Russia’s gloomy prospects, reinforced by the long-term outlook for reduced oil and gas prices, have brought about a situation where President Vladimir Putin and his associates do not think about the long-term future of their country. Their international considerations, specifically, are based on their assessments of immediate potential payoffs.

Since the Russian leadership doesn’t suffer from the civilizational neurosis the Soviets inflicted on the West, like the Soviet leaders before him, Putin’s short-term game empowers him to adopt policies with potentially high short-term payoffs regardless of the long-term dangers they create. Russia’s policies in Syria and toward Iran are case in point.

On the other side of the divide in Europe, the elites devote their remaining days in power to absolving themselves of imperialist and capitalist guilt. To this end, they have adopted the causes of those they falsely believe were most victimized by their predecessors.

The same is true, albeit to a lesser degree, in the US.

This then brings us back to KGB agent Abbas and his target, Israel.

Against great odds, and at a steep price, over the past 10 years Israeli society stopped listening to the voices on the Left parroting Abbas’s lies that Israel was born in sin, as a Western colonialist implant. Given the stakes, most Israelis today also have come to realize that our national self-confidence is a vital component of our long-term survival.

This understanding, along with a clear-eyed assessment of what drives our interlocutors in Moscow, Paris, New York and Brussels, must inform our foreign policy in the coming years.

When faced with foreign governments whose societies lack long-term prospects, Israel needs to put aside its yearning for long-term peace and stability and focus on short-term cooperative ties. It must also recognize that our partners’ interests are subject to change at a moment’s notice.

The revelation of Abbas’s KGB service requires us to recognize that the Soviets’ long game of subversion continues on today. Whether or not Western societies persevere and reject the Soviets’ central contention that they are unworthy of survival is not for Israel to decide. So, too, Israel will not convince the Russians to embrace a future based on freedom and the sanctity of life.

All we can do is wish them the best and play the short-term game with them – while keeping our long-term interests front and center in our minds.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Israel and Russia, KGB, Leftists, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists
Tags: Abbas, Israel, Israel and Russia, KGB, Leftists, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists

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“No Room for the Zionist Entity in the Region”

August 18, 2016

“No Room for the Zionist Entity in the Region”, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, August 18, 2016

♦ “The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Wakf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except Jihad.” — Hamas Charter.

♦ Hamas’s decision to participate in the upcoming local and municipal elections will further strengthen the movement and pave the way for it to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

♦ “The Zionist entity will not be part of this region. We will continue to resist it until the liberation of our land and the return of our people.” — Musa Abu Marzouk, senior Hamas official.

♦ How precisely Hamas intends to “serve” the Palestinians by running in the elections is somewhat murky. Abu Marzouk did not talk about building new schools and parks for the Palestinians. When he talks about “serving” the people, he means only one thing: recruiting Palestinians to Hamas and jihad against Israel and the Jews.

The dreamers in English still have it: “Hamas and Israel, Israel and Hamas. Maybe one day…who knows.” And then the Arabic-language truth rolls in: “Death to Israel, always!”

Some Arab and Western political analysts have mistakenly interpreted Hamas’s agreement to participate in the Palestinian local and municipal elections, scheduled for October 8, as a sign of the movement’s “pragmatism” and march toward recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

They falsely assume that Hamas’s readiness to take part in the democratic process shows that the leaders of the extremist movement are also prepared to abandon their dream of destroying Israel and abandoning the “armed struggle” against it.

These arguments about Hamas’s purported “pragmatism” and “moderation” were also made back in 2006, when Hamas contested the Palestinian parliamentary election. Then too, many political analysts claimed that Hamas’s decision to run in the election was an encouraging sign that the movement has endorsed a new, moderate approach toward Israel and the peace process.

Reality, however, has proven these assumptions utterly false. Hamas’s victory in the 2006 parliamentary election did not bring about any changes in its extremist ideology. Hamas did not change its charter, which calls for the destruction of Israel. Nor did Hamas abandon its murderous terrorist attacks against Israelis.

To recall, here is what the Hamas charter openly states about this issue:

“The Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas] believes that the land of Palestine has been an Islamic Wakf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except Jihad. The liberation of that land is an individual duty binding on all Muslims everywhere. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from rising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the Islamic Umma [nation], clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.”

The 2006 Hamas victory, in fact, further emboldened Hamas and increased its determination to stick to its ideology and terrorism, in addition to the indoctrination and incitement against Israel. The following year, in 2007, Hamas even waged a coup against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and seized full control over the Gaza Strip.

Likewise, Hamas’s decision to participate in the upcoming local and municipal elections will further strengthen the movement and pave the way for it to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

So, an electoral win or loss for Hamas is totally irrelevant. Hamas is not going to change its ideology or soften its position toward Israel and the “peace process.” And, of course, Hamas is not going to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Its leaders continue to assure their people of that — in public and on a daily basis.

As in the parliamentary election, Hamas may even emerge stronger and more resolved, especially if it wins the upcoming local and municipal elections, as it seems destined to do.

Hamas sees its participation in elections as a golden opportunity for “the reinforcement of its positions and for the encouragement of its Jihad,” as it clearly and unequivocally states in its charter.

In other words, Hamas sees elections as a chance to pursue its fight to eliminate Israel. So Hamas is not running in the upcoming elections in order to provide the Palestinians with improved municipal services, but, as it states in its charter, “in order to make possible the next round with the Jews, the merchants of war” and “until liberation is completed, the invaders are vanquished and Allah’s victory sets in.”

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Masked Hamas members (dressed in black) prepare to execute local Palestinians who they claim spied for Israel, Aug. 22, 2014, in Gaza. (Image source: Reuters video screenshot)

Yet, incredibly, some Western political analysts and Palestinian affairs “experts” dismiss the Hamas charter as irrelevant. This dismissal is now based on statements attributed sporadically to some Hamas leaders and spokesmen in various media outlets. These comments are, for them, “encouraging” and “positive” signs from Hamas. They even take the foolhardy step of advising world leaders to listen to these voices and take them into account when dealing with Hamas.

Let us examine, for a moment, one of those statements.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was recently reported to have voiced his movement’s readiness to recognize Israel’s right to exit [exist? — DM] if it withdrew to the pre-1967 lines, namely the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip (Israel already pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005).

Mashaal is reported to have told representatives of Asian media organizations during a briefing in Doha, Qatar, that he was prepared to accept Israel’s right to exist and the “two-state solution.”

Within hours, the Hamas leadership denied that Mashaal had made such remarks concerning Israel’s right to exist. Hamas called the reports “lies” and “fabrications” and reiterated its refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist. “These suspicious and fabricated statements are aimed at distorting the image and positions of Hamas and its leadership,” read a statement issued by the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip.

Slander and defamation: that is how Hamas views the talk about its leaders’ purported readiness to recognize Israel. This, to them, is the worst thing that could happen to Hamas — to accept the presence of Israel in the Middle East. The Hamas denial is aimed at protecting its reputation and image in the eyes of its supporters, lest they believe, God forbid, that the Islamist movement has abandoned its desire to eliminate Israel.

To set the record straight, another senior Hamas official, Musa Abu Marzouk, declared this week: “The Zionist entity will not be part of this region. We will continue to resist it until the liberation of our land and the return of our people.” With tongue in cheek, Abu Marzouk, who is being groomed as a potential successor to Mashaal, stated that Hamas’s goal behind its decision to participate in the October 8 local and municipal elections was to “serve our people.” Addressing his rivals in President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, the top Hamas official added: “Our differences will not reach the level of enmity. Our only enemy is Israel. Our political rivalry should not exceed its limit.”

How precisely Hamas intends to “serve” the Palestinians by running in the elections is somewhat murky. Abu Marzouk did not talk about building new schools and parks for the Palestinians. When he talks about “serving” the people, he means only one thing: recruiting Palestinians to Hamas and jihad against Israel and the Jews.

In recent weeks, Hamas supporters have been launching various campaigns highlighting the Islamist movement’s “achievements” in the Gaza Strip in a bid to win the hearts and minds of voters. One campaign, entitled, “A More Beautiful Gaza,” features scenes of clean streets and public parks in some parts of the Gaza Strip. Yet the rosy picture that Hamas is painting is silent as to the extraordinarily high rate of unemployment and poverty in the Gaza Strip, or the fact that thousands of Palestinian families have lost their homes in wars with Israel that were the direct result of bombarding Israel with rockets and missiles. Nor does the campaign talk about Hamas’s repressive measures against women and journalists.

This campaign of disinformation is aimed at persuading Palestinian voters that the two million residents of the Gaza Strip are living in a utopia under Hamas, and that this experience now needs to be copied in the West Bank.

There is no doubt that many Palestinians will fall into this trap and cast their ballots for Hamas. They will do so because they will be convinced that Hamas will solve all their economic and social problems and bring them peace and stability at home. But many Palestinians will also vote for Hamas for other reasons. The first of these is that they identify with Hamas’s ideology, as expressed in its charter, and believe that jihad is the only way to “liberate Palestine.” Second, Hamas has managed to convince a large number of Palestinians that a vote for another party or candidate other than Hamas would be a vote against Islam and Allah.

History seems to be repeating itself and the lessons from the Hamas victory in the 2006 parliamentary election have not been learned. Hamas is fooling not only many Palestinians by promising them a better life and prosperity under its rule; it is also fooling some Westerners, who talk about “signs of moderation and pragmatism” coming from the Islamist movement.

Since its establishment in 1987, Hamas has been single-minded about its charter-documented desire to wage jihad against Israel. Its leaders continue to state this in Arabic on a daily basis. It is not rocket science: the movement has not changed and will not do so in the future, regardless of whether it wins or loses any election.

Hamas has made itself perfectly clear. What is not so clear is why some Westerners continue to talk about its “policy shifts.” Also difficult to understand is why some in the West are not asking President Abbas and his Palestinian Authority what they intend to do if and when Hamas wins the local and municipal elections. Finally, why Abbas is pushing ahead with preparations for the elections, when he knows that his Fatah faction could easily lose to Hamas, is a true mystery.

Categories: Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinians and Jews
Tags: Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian elections, Palestinians and Jews

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An Olympic medal in incitement

August 5, 2016

An Olympic medal in incitement, Israel Hayom, Nadav Shragai, August 5, 2016

The Olympics are supposed to be a celebration of the best in humanity. But the Palestinian delegation is being led by a terrorist who still incites to violence against Israel. Even at the highest level, it seems, sport cannot free itself from politics.

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Even before the opening ceremony, the Rio de Janeiro Olympics left a somewhat bitter taste in the mouths of Israelis. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict managed to worm its way into the most important sporting event in the world, one that is supposed to be free from politics and certainly from terrorism. Jibril Rajoub — former head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force and a contender for the leadership of the Palestinian Authority after President Mahmoud Abbas’ time is up, an avowed supporter of terrorism who has incited to murder even during this most recent wave of terrorist violence — was the man chosen by the Palestinians to head their Olympic committee.

Israel, the International Olympic Committee, and the Olympic Committee of Israel have refrained from taking any action against Rajoub, given the importance of the Arab vote on the IOC. But bereaved families, the terrorist victims advocacy organization Almagor, and the Palestinian Media Watch watchdog organization, which has for years documented and translated Rajoub’s statements in the Palestinian press, are finding it hard to stand by quietly in the face of such absurdity: The man who openly supported terrorism and this year congratulated murderous terrorists on Palestinian television broadcasts,the man who swore only a few years ago that if the Palestinians ever had a nuclear weapon, they would use it immediately (against Israel), will be walking around in a tie in the next few days, smiling at cocktail receptions during this sporting event that symbolizes unity among nations and bridges to peace.

The material on Rajoub, some of which held hope for leaders of Israel’s security apparatus in the past, is hardly a state secret. The Rajoub File, which researchers from Palestinian Media Watch have spent the last few weeks compiling, was recently placed before Israeli decision-makers. The unprecedented decision by the IOC under its German head, Thomas Bach, to hold the first memorial ceremony for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Games in 1972 stands in contrast to the IOC’s refusal to do a thing about Rajoub.

The IOC generally does not interfere in politics, even when it uses them for its own purposes. Some well-known historical examples of that include the Berlin Olympics in 1936, which were opened by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler; and on the other end of the spectrum, during the Cold War, the decisions by the U.S. to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow and by the former USSR to boycott the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

On the other hand, according to a study prepared a week ago by Israel’s Wingate Institute, despite the IOC’s general disinclination for international intervention, the body has been involved more than once in decisions of a diplomatic nature, when it believes that doing so would truly contribute to Olympic values. Germany and Austria were kept out of the 1920 Olympics because of their responsibility for World War I; Germany and Japan were excluded from the London Games in 1948 because of their responsibility for World War II. The IOC excluded South Africa from the Olympic movement in 1964, an international contribution to the fight against that country’s apartheid regime. However, for years, political pressure kept the IOC from recognizing East Germany or Taiwan as separate sporting entities — and political pressure has, as we know, led it to recognize the Olympic committees of the Palestinians and Kosovo, without either of them having been recognized as a state by the U.N.

The Rajoub case is a different matter. This isn’t a country, but a person who represents a political-national entity, and he is a classic example of how politics can influence sports. In a sporting world free from politics, a supporter of terrorism like Rajoub would have been tossed out the door long ago. But Rajoub has backing.

Rajoub was once sentenced to life in prison, but was released under the Jibril deal in 1985. He participated in the First Intifada, was deported to Lebanon in 1992, and returned to Israel in 1994, after the Oslo Accords were signed. As part of his job as head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force, Rajoub helped Israel thwart several terrorist attacks and prevented his people from taking part in terrorism. However, his command center was destroyed by the IDF after a firefight during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. Over the past few years, he has once again been backing terrorism, or “martyrdom,” as he calls it. The Arab bloc on the IOC, comprising 46 Muslim countries, gives him a political screen. Rajoub, 63, is effectively unimpeachable. His roles as chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee and the Palestinian Football Association have raised his status with the Palestinian public. In the past, he threatened to keep Israel out of the Olympics, but his efforts were torpedoed. Israel is convinced that any attack on Rajoub could cause immediate harm to the status of Israeli athletes in the Olympic Games and other athletic bodies, too, such as FIFA, the international soccer federation.

All that the bereaved families, groups like Almagor, and Palestinian Media Watch can do now is lift their voices and cry out. This week, they urged the IOC to remove Rajoub from his role as head of the POC and cut off contact with him. It was a moral cry, not a pragmatic one. Even they know that Rajoub isn’t going anywhere. But the hefty documentation in the Rajoub File tells the story of the man who, starting tonight, is a guest in Rio de Janeiro. It’s also the story of the ties between sports and politics, and sports and terrorism.

Sponsorship of the ‘Martyrdom Tournament’

Rajoub, who also serves as undersecretary for the Fatah Central Committee, marked his path in the latest terrorism wave very clearly on the day Israel released the bodies of 17 Palestinian terrorists for burial. The head of the POC noted that the terrorists’ actions had been a source of “pride for us all,” “acts of heroism by individuals,” and “a crown of glory on the heads of the Palestinians.”

“We in the Fatah movement welcome them and encourage them [terrorists],” he said. “There is a group of people, starting with our brother Muhannad Halabi [who stabbed Rabbi Nehemia Lavie and Aharon Bennett to death near the Western Wall last Sukkot] and down to the latest martyr … there is competition between individuals. This is one issue we need to focus on — are we for it, or against it? I say, we on the Central Committee have discussed this matter. We are in favor.” Rajoub said. He also honored Halabi by naming an athletic event after him.

The POC chairman remains consistent in his outlook. He reiterated: “We say to the 145 martyrs [Palestinians killed between October 2015 and January 2016, mostly during terrorist activity] — you are heroes and we congratulate you. … You are a crown upon our heads.”

The terrorist attacks, Rajoub clarified on the official PLO television station, are “acts of heroism by individuals and I am proud of them. I congratulate everyone who carried them out.”

Palestinian Media Watch Chairman Itamar Marcus notes that Rajoub is very calculating in his support of terrorism.

“He calls on the Palestinians [to commit] acts of murder as individuals, against Israelis in ‘occupied territories,’ a term the Palestinians sometimes use to denote all of Israel, and sometimes just in the West Bank or Jerusalem,” Marcus said.

Rajoub himself put it this way: “The international community doesn’t accept buses blowing up in Tel Aviv, but it doesn’t question what happens to a settler or a soldier who is in the occupied territories in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one asks about that. Therefore, we want to fight in a way that keeps the international community on our side.”

Rajoub, who worked alongside PLO founder Yasser Arafat in Tunisia, has continually sponsored athletic events in the memory of terrorist killers, such as the “Martyr Dalal Mughrabi Tournament.” Mughrabi led a terrorist attack on an Israeli bus in 1978, in which 37 civilians, including 12 children, were killed. A fencing tournament was named after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad, who according to the PLO was responsible for the deaths of 125 Israelis. Another event was named for Abu Ali Mustafa, former secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who was responsible for a number of terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada. A few years ago, Rajoub also attended a sports event in honor of Ali Hassan Salameh, chief security officer of the PLO, who was among the planners of the attack on the Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972.

Rajoub insisted that Hamas keep its “weapons of resistance” and in future join forces with Fatah in its fight against Israel, saying, “My brothers [in Hamas], we see your weapons, your weapons of resistance, as sacred. We won’t harm them. We won’t pursue them or track them, but could you put them away? At the moment of truth, we’ll all fight together.”

In April 2013, Rajoub gave an interview to a Lebanese television station in which he declared: “I swear that if we had nuclear weapons, we would have used them [against Israel] this morning.” Even after his remarks were published in the Israeli media, Rajoub did not retract them and told a Palestinian interviewer: “When someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first, and don’t be killed. … I’m certain that if Hitler would rise again, he would learn from them [the Israelis].”

Ziyad and Mustafa Ghneimat, who murdered Meir Ben Yair and Michal Cohen near the Massua Forest in 1985, were embraced by Rajoub after their release from prison and given certificates of commendation. Rajoub also praised Hamas’ abduction of Israeli soldiers as a method of freeing “prisoners,” praised the abduction of Gilad Schalit, and said he saluted Schalit’s kidnappers.

One of the principles of the Olympic Games, Marcus and the bereaved families remind us, is for sports and competition to serve as a bridge to peace and unity between nations. One of the missions of the IOC, as explicitly stated in the Olympic charter, is to “place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace.” Nevertheless, Rajoub and the Palestinian Authority absolutely refuse to hold athletic events designed to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and threaten to take legal action against Palestinian athletes who participate in sporting events with Israel. The PA considers such events “normalization” with Israel and collaboration with “the occupation.”

Normalization is a crime

Rajoub plays a major role in blocking athletic events between Israel and the Palestinians, in a manner that blatantly contradicts the Olympic spirit. After Operation Protective Edge in 2014, children from Sderot and the Gaza Strip took part in a friendly soccer match organized by the Peres Center for Peace. Rajoub was infuriated and called the match a “crime against humanity.” He made it clear that “normalization with the Zionist occupation in the field of sports is a crime.”

According to Palestinian Media Watch, Rajoub is aware that preventing sporting events designed to foster peace goes against the underlying principle of international sports, the Olympic Games in particular. Therefore, he adopts different language when dealing with senior international sports officials. In a letter in English to former FIFA head Sepp Blatter, Rajoub writes that sports can serve as a bridge to connect people.

When speaking to Arabs, however, he expresses himself differently: “This country, Israel, is a country of punks. The fascists could learn from this country. … Anyone who takes part in any sporting activity with Israelis, I’ll erase him from the lists of the [athletic] federations, whether it’s a player, a coach, a referee, or heaven forbid a team. … I won’t allow or agree to any match between the Arabs and Israel.”

In another instance, Rajoub stressed that “the term normalization does not exist in the Palestinian sports dictionary. … I say to you, there will never be normalization in sports.”

Rajoub also called for Israel to be kicked out of international sports federations and for Palestinian sports to be set up as “a method of resistance against Israel.”

Hillel Appelbaum, cousin of Dr. David Appelbaum, who was murdered along with his daughter Nava in a suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem 13 years ago, made a formal appeal to the IOC about Rajoub, aided by the Mattot Arim advocacy movement. He asked the IOC to cut all ties with Rajoub. His appeal was rejected.

Although material from over two years ago supposedly shows Rajoub — not using his title as chairman of the Palestinian Olympic Committee — saying that the POC under his leadership was working to improve relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority through sports, documentation exposed in the report by Palestinian Media Watch shows up the opposite: Rajoub has been inciting to terrorism over the past two years; he uses his title as chairman of the POC when doing so; and the POC under his leadership opposes, and even works assiduously, to normalize sporting activity with Israel.

President Reuven Rivlin, to whom Appelbaum sent a copy of his letter to the IOC, characterizes the appeal as “of the utmost morality,” and noted in his reply to the Appelbaum family that he was “sorry to learn of the expressions of incitement coming from the man who heads the [Palestinian] Olympic Committee.”

Zvi Warshaviak, who headed the Israeli Olympic Committee for 16 years until 2013, said the Muslim bloc’s strength on the IOC makes any Israeli protest or action against Rajoub irrelevant.

“I’m a right-winger, but I know the reality of that organization,” Warshaviak said. “Even the German chairman, Bach, who is a supporter of Israel, would be happy to clear his organization of politics, but he also realizes the limitations to his power. Rajoub himself learned what he knows in Israeli prisons. He formed close ties with the country’s top security echelon and apparently made deals with senior Israeli officials. Today, to improve his position in the fight to inherit the PA leadership, he is radicalizing his positions and trying to make headlines. I would suggest we not respond to him.”

Why did it take 44 years for the IOC to agree to hold a ceremony in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered in Munich?

“Arab states opposed any ceremony. They argued that the people who killed most of the athletes were the Germans, in their failed attempt to free the hostages, and that the Germans were the ones who killed the terrorists, and that if a ceremony is held, it should be in memory of the terrorists, too. Of course, we didn’t agree to that, and their majority blocked any other possibility for years,” Warshaviak said.

If so, how did the IOC’s position change?

“Thomas Bach, who four years ago held a very respectful ceremony at the airport where our athletes were murdered, which included a commitment to establish a museum in the victims’ memory, found a solution: There will be a stone memorial plaque on which the names of our 11 murdered [athletes] will be inscribed, along with the names of two of the spectators at the Atlanta Olympics, who were killed by a bomb, and the name of another athlete from the Republic of Georgia, who slipped and died during the Winter Olympics. The plaque will be moved from one Olympic Games to the next. It will be set up in the middle of the athletes’ village, and a ceremony will be held around it every four years,” he said.

‘Blood on his hands’

Ilana Romano, widow of the Israeli weightlifter Yossef Romano who was murdered at the Munich Olympics, refuses to discuss the scandal of Rajoub, a supporter of terrorism, heading the Palestinian delegation to the Games.

“Any discussion by me will simply serve his [interests]. I don’t want to turn him into ‘poor thing’ or give him media attention,” Romano says. However, she expects Rajoub to “condemn the murder of the athletes in Munich and the continuation of terrorism. As long as he doesn’t do that, he has blood on his hands.”

Romano notes that the families of the murdered athletes are satisfied with their gain: the IOC holding the first memorial ceremony for their murdered loved ones, “despite our original demand — a minute of silence in memory of the murdered athletes at the opening ceremony — being blocked by the Arab states on the IOC.”

Dvora Appelbaum, who lost her husband and daughter in the suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel, is not willing to stay quiet about Rajoub and the Olympics. Appelbaum calls the IOC both absurd and hypocritical.

“For over 40 years, the organization that did nothing to initiate a memorial ceremony for the Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics is now giving legitimacy to a person, a former terrorist, who even today continues to use his public position to glorify and back acts of terrorism against Israelis,” she said.

Yossi Tzur, the father of Assaf, one of the 17 people murdered in the No. 37 bus bombing in Haifa 12 years ago, who is currently a pillar of the Almagor Terror Victims Association, says that Rajoub’s statements over the years are equivalent to those of the greatest enemies of the Jewish people throughout the generations.

“It would be best if the sponsors of the Olympics would let the scales fall from their eyes and realize that it isn’t possible at the same event to hold a memorial ceremony for the Israeli athletes murdered in Munich by Palestinian terrorists while at the same time hosting a delegation head who is currently glorifying Palestinian terrorism,” Tzur says.

Yehezkel Lavi, the father of the late Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, says the honor the PA gives to a person such as Rajoub and other inciters who support terrorism is a source of pain and sorrow to the bereaved families.

“The murderer of my son had a monument erected in his village. His act is glorified and he and those like him become an example for Palestinian society. It hurts us that no real steps are being taken against that incitement. Now that one of the biggest inciters to terrorism is serving as head of an Olympic delegation, at an event that is supposed to build bridges of peace between people and nations, it pains us even more. This man should have been expelled from the Olympics,” Lavi said.

The Rajoub File, the report that documents his many statements supporting terrorism over the years, was submitted to Israel Hayom this week, as well as to the PA Spokesperson’s Office, which said it handed it over to Rajoub. Israel Hayom tried to reach Rajoub on his cell phone twice, and finally reached an aide, who said that Rajoub was not interested in commenting.

Categories: Fatah, IOC, Israel, Olympics, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian Olympic Committee, Palestinian terrorists, Sport
Tags: Fatah, IOC, Israel, Olymics, Olympics, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian Olympic Committee, Palestinian terrorists

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Raising the Palestinian cause at the DNC

July 28, 2016

Raising the Palestinian cause at the DNC, Vice News, Dalia Hatuqa, July 28, 2016

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A delegate holds a sign reading ‘I support Palestinian Human Rights’ at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia [Tannen Maury/EPA]

An issue that was once sidelined even in progressive circles, Palestine was pushed to the forefront of the electoral campaign this year, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders showing that policy change on a seemingly intractable conflict is possible.

For the first time, the platform reflected the right of Palestinians to “independence, sovereignty, and dignity” in addition to Israel’s security. In a recent poll (PDF) of American attitudes on the conflict, 49 percent of Democrats said they recommended economic sanctions or other more serious action to counter settlement construction.

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Eva Putzova held a banner with a simple message just outside the Democratic National Convention (DNC) floor on Tuesday: “I support Palestinian rights.”

“I think it’s time that Democratic candidates – Hillary, Bernie or anybody else – start taking the issue seriously and start a real national conversation and get behind all human rights, including Palestinian rights,” said Putzova, a city council member from Flagstaff, Arizona.

She was among many pro-Palestine activists at the DNC this week who came out in a show of force unprecedented at other political conventions. They marched and rallied, held talks and town halls, carried signs and, at one point, raised a Palestinian flag on the convention floor.

“The issue is getting more media exposure, more people are aware,” Putzova said. “I think we are on the brink of changing the policy stands of the US, but it will take all of us to push the political elite. I think [Palestinians are] a community that has been marginalised for so long.”

An issue that was once sidelined even in progressive circles, Palestine was pushed to the forefront of the electoral campaign this year, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders showing that policy change on a seemingly intractable conflict is possible.

In a debate last April, he pushed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to call the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza “disproportionate”. He said the US and Israel need “to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity” and that the US “has to play an even-handed role”. Sanders, however, was also criticised for not denouncing Israel more forcefully, and for the ousting of his campaign’s Jewish outreach director, who slammed Israel’s prime minister in a Facebook post.

A month later, Sanders assigned James Zogby, an advocate for Palestinian rights, and four others, including one of two Muslim congressmen, to the platform-writing committee, signalling his attempt to revise the party’s long-standing policy that favoured Israel.

“It took the work of a mass movement and a courageous person like Bernie Sanders, because if Bernie hadn’t elevated it, it wouldn’t have happened,” said Zogby, also President of the Arab American Institute, in a talk attended by pro-Palestine supporters in Philadelphia. “He gave us a qualitative boost forward.”

What’s on the platform?

On the DNC sidelines, pro-Palestine supporters discussed how the conflict with the Israelis was playing out on the domestic policy platform.

But in stark contrast to public support and activism, the party’s platform, which now supports a $15 minimum wage and Wall Street reform, did not include references to the Israeli occupation and its settlements.

Zogby said Clinton supporters cut out these references, fearing retribution from billionaire mogul and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson. On an official level, Clinton’s backers said the call for negotiations for a two-state solution in the party’s platform was sufficient.

Going into the platform-writing committee, Zogby said he and other Sanders delegates were expecting to discuss removing a reference to Jerusalem being the “undivided capital” of Israel, and opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“We wanted to strike the BDS line, we wanted to strike out a line on Jerusalem,” said Zogby, who is also on the DNC’s executive committee. “I thought that would be the fight. I had no idea the fight would end up being over occupation and settlements.”

They lost on all counts, and pro-Clinton supporters said they couldn’t change the language. “Here’s what they told me: ‘We can’t do it because Adelson will come out against us,'” Zogby said. “He will come after you no matter what you do. The people who like [Adelson] won’t vote for you.”

The platform committee discussions leading up to the DNC also spurred controversy, as civil rights activist and scholar Cornel West made an impassioned appeal to change the language to include “an end to occupation and illegal settlements”.

He called Palestine a “Vietnam War” issue for young Americans, and likened the party’s indifference to the conflict to the same apathy to “these Negroes” in the Jim Crow era.

Despite the fact that the resolution was voted down, some believe that the discourse on Palestine has shifted.

For the first time, the platform reflected the right of Palestinians to “independence, sovereignty, and dignity” in addition to Israel’s security. In a recent poll (PDF) of American attitudes on the conflict, 49 percent of Democrats said they recommended economic sanctions or other more serious action to counter settlement construction.

A changing conversation

“The conversation has improved a lot … it is broader and more inclusive,” said Congressman Keith Ellison of Minnesota, another Sanders pick on the DNC platform committee. “Over the past few years, members of Congress have gone to the Holy Land, not only to Israel, but also to Palestine. The perspective is changing, and it’s a good time to continue the work that you’re doing.”

Palestine supporters are banking on the presence of many activists and progressives in the city, in part because of Sanders’ candidacy, to expand and change the debate on the conflict.

They are also aware that the share of younger Americans sympathising with the Palestinian cause has risen significantly in recent years – from 9 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in July 2014, and finally to 27 percent today.

“We have seen some fairly remarkable changes in the landscape of how the issue of Palestine and Israel is being addressed – both in the news media and particularly within progressive circles,” said Mike Merryman Lotze, the American Friends Service Committee’s (also known as the Quakers) Palestine-Israel programme director.

“If we look back where the conversation was 15 years ago today, even really five years ago, we have to recognise that we are now in a fundamentally different place,” he said.

“That marks a shift … and that conversation has been pushed by the grassroots progressive movement.”

READ MORE: US Democratic Party – Closer to justice on Palestine?

Categories: 2016 elections, Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders' supporters, Democrat National Convention, Democrat Party, Democrat party platform, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians
Tags: Bernie Sanders, Bernie Sanders' supporters, Democrat National Convention, Democrat Party, Democrat party platform, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians

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The Palestinians: Refugee Camps or Terrorist Bases?

July 21, 2016

The Palestinians: Refugee Camps or Terrorist Bases? Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, July 21, 2016

♦ The 450,000 Palestinians in Lebanon are still banned from several professions, especially in the fields of medicine and law. They refer to these restrictions as apartheid measures. The Lebanese apartheid measures against Palestinians are rarely mentioned in the Western media and international human rights groups. The UN does not seem overly concerned about this discrimination.

♦ Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have become in the past few decades bases for various innumerable militias and terrorist groups.

♦ The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, is formally in charge of the refugee camps in Lebanon, including those that are now providing shelter to Islamist terrorists.

♦ The Lebanese authorities are increasingly running out of patience with the growing Islamist threat.

ISIS is on the mind of the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership. Top PA officials have expressed concern that jihadi groups, including ISIS, have managed to infiltrate Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities are also worried — so worried that they have issued a stiff warning to the Palestinians: Stop the terrorists or else we will take security into our own hands.

According to Lebanese security sources, more and more Palestinians in Lebanon have joined ISIS and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, a Sunni Islamist militia fighting against Syrian government forces. In response, the Lebanese security forces have taken a series of measures in a bid to contain the problem and prevent the two Islamist terror groups from establishing bases of power in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

According to some reports, dozens of Palestinians from Lebanon who joined ISIS and Al-Nusra Front have been killed or wounded in Syria in recent months. Most of those who were killed have been buried in Syria, the reports said.

Alarmed by the success of ISIS and Al-Nusra Front in recruiting dozens of Palestinians to their ranks, the Palestinian Authority leadership this week sent Azzam Al-Ahmed, a senior advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas, to Beirut for urgent talks with Lebanese government officials on ways of containing the escalation. The PA leadership fears that the heightened activities of the two terrorist groups in the refugee camps will force the Lebanese army to launch a massive military operation to get rid of the terrorists, who pose an immediate threat to Lebanese national security.

Al-Ahmed, who is in charge of the Lebanon Portfolio in the Palestinian Authority, held a series of meetings with Lebanese government officials in a bid to avoid a security showdown between the Lebanese army and the Palestinians living in the country’s refugee camps. Following a meeting with Lebanese Interior Minister Nihad Al-Mashnouk, the Palestinian envoy said that the talks focused on the need to take “joint steps to ensure security stability in the Palestinian refugee camps.” According to Al-Ahmed, the talks also dealt with ways to prevent certain parties, especially ISIS and Al-Nusra Front, from exploiting the Palestinian refugee camps to threaten Lebanon’s security interests.

Lebanese security officials have reported direct contacts between ISIS leaders in Syria and some senior Islamist figures in the Ain Al-Hilweh refugee camp, the largest camp in Lebanon, with a population of more of than 120,000 — half of them refugees who fled Syria since 2011. The officials said that one of the commanders of ISIS in Syria, Abu Khaled Al-Iraqi, has stepped up his contacts with Palestinians in Ain Al-Hilweh in recent weeks, in preparation for launching terrorist attacks against Lebanese targets. The Lebanese have named a number of Palestinians from Ain Al-Hilweh evidently serving as ISIS representatives in Lebanon: Emad Yasmin, Helal Helal, Abed Fadda, Nayef Abdullah and Abu Hamzeh Mubarak.

Last week, Palestinian sources revealed that one of the jihadi leaders in Ain Al-Hilweh, Omar Abu Kharoub, nicknamed Abu Muhtaseb Al-Maqdisi, was killed while fighting alongside ISIS in Syria. The sources said that he is only one of hundreds of Palestinians from Lebanon who have joined ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front.

The Lebanese government has informed the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah that at least 300 jihadi terrorists are now barricaded inside Ain Al-Hilweh. “The situation has become intolerable and we can no longer turn a blind eye to this threat,” the Lebanese warned the PA.

The Islamist terrorists who have found shelter inside Ain Al-Hilweh have repeatedly warned the Lebanese authorities against launching a military attack against the refugee camp.

In a recent sermon for Friday prayers, Sheikh Abu Yusef Aqel condemned Lebanon’s mistreatment of its Palestinian population. He pointed out that under Lebanese law, Palestinians are banned from working in 72 professions. Referring to reports in the Lebanese media about the threats emerging from the Palestinian camps, Sheikh Aqel said:

“If these (Lebanese) media outlets were really affiliated with the resistance, as they claim, they would have focused on the suffering of a people that was displaced from its homeland more than 70 years ago. They would also have focused on the fact that Lebanon bans this people from working in 72 professions.”

Aqel is referring to the circumstance that until a decade ago, a total of seventy-two professions were restricted to Lebanese only. The Lebanese government issued a memorandum on June 7, 2005 permitting Palestinians refugees to work in fifty of these seventy-two professions. However, Palestinians in Lebanon are still banned from several types of jobs, especially in the fields of medicine and law. The 450,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon refer to these restrictions as apartheid measures.

The Lebanese apartheid measures against Palestinians are rarely mentioned in the Western media and international human rights groups. The United Nations does not seem overly concerned about this discrimination, apparently because it is practiced by an Arab country against Arabs.

Lebanon has never been comfortable with the presence of the Palestinians on its soil. That is precisely why the authorities have turned the twelve Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon into ghettos. These ghettos are off-limits to the Lebanese security forces. As a result, these camps have become in the past few decades bases for various innumerable militias and terrorist groups. Until a few years ago, the major Palestinian Fatah faction was the dominant group controlling the refugee camps in Lebanon. No longer. Today, it has become evident that many other groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS and Al-Qaeda have established bases of power inside the camps.

It is worth mentioning that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) is formally in charge of the refugee camps in Lebanon, including those that are now providing shelter to Islamist terrorists.

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The Wavel refugee camp for Palestinians, near Baalbek in Lebanon, which is administered by UNRWA. (Image credit: European Commission DG ECHO)

Back to PA anxiety. Undoubtedly, the Palestinian Authority leadership is concerned that many of its erstwhile loyalists in Fatah have defected to the various jihadi terror groups. These groups are now posing a major threat not only to Lebanon’s security and stability, but also to the PA and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, who feel helpless in the face of the Islamist tsunami sweeping the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Abbas and his PA have clearly lost control over the millions of Palestinians living in the neighboring Arab countries, including Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. This is in addition to the fact that Abbas and the PA have nearly no control over Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where various jihadi groups and other secular militias and gangs are now in control.

The hands of the Palestinian Authority leadership are now tied: the PA cannot regain control over the refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Arab countries. There is also nothing that Abbas can do to stop the residents of these camps from joining ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

All what is left for Abbas to do is to try and prevent a catastrophe from falling on the heads of the Palestinians in these camps, especially Lebanon, where the Lebanese authorities are increasingly running out of patience with the growing Islamist threat.

“The Lebanese army will not allow terrorism to find a safe place in Ain Al-Hilweh or any other part of Lebanon,” cautioned a Lebanese security source. “We will not allow Ain Al-Hilweh to become a hotbed for terrorism and be used as a launching pad to explode the situation in Lebanon. We will face any such attempt with force and firmness.”

The Palestinians’ biggest fear now is that Ain Al-Hilweh will meet the same fate as the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon, which was almost entirely destroyed by the Lebanese army in 2007. Then, the presence of Islamist terrorists belonging to the Fatah Al-Islam group inside Nahr Al-Bared triggered heavy clashes during which the Lebanese army used artillery and helicopter gunships to attack the camp, home to some 40,000 Palestinians. At least 158 people were killed and hundreds wounded in the fighting, which also left many families homeless.

Busy with more pressing issues, Abbas was unable to make the trip to Lebanon himself. What is the urgent business that prevented him from showing up in person to try to prevent catastrophe for his people in Lebanon? His grand tour, an end-game bid to win support for an international Middle East peace conference that would choke Israel into submission.

Abbas is next slated for Paris, where on July 22 he is scheduled to meet with President François Hollande to discuss the latest French initiative to “solve” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hollande might do better to turn inward to consider how his own country will manage the latest wave of Islamist terrorism. Abbas, for his part, is unlikely to broach with Hollande the incendiary situation in the Palestinian refugee camps, where ISIS and Al-Qaeda are gaining the upper hand.

Categories: Islamic terror groups, Islamic training camps, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, UNRWA
Tags: Islamic terror groups, Islamic training camps, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, UNRWA

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With Publication Of High School Finals Results, Palestinian Authority Press Notes Deaths Of Students Who Carried Out Stabbing Attacks, Stresses: ‘Dying As A Martyr Is The Path Of Excellence And Superiority’

July 13, 2016

With Publication Of High School Finals Results, Palestinian Authority Press Notes Deaths Of Students Who Carried Out Stabbing Attacks, Stresses: ‘Dying As A Martyr Is The Path Of Excellence And Superiority’, MEMRI, July 13, 2016

The July 11, 2016 release of high school seniors’ final exam results by the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Education is being widely covered in the Palestinian media. As part of this coverage, on July 12, PA dailies published articles on high school seniors who had been killed during the school year carrying out, or attempting to carry out, stabbing attacks against Israelis, and who thus would never graduate. The articles praised the teenagers’ martyrdom, playing with the Arabic wordshahada, which means both “diploma” and “martyrdom.” The lead article in the PA official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida listed 16 Palestinian students whom, it stated, had not been able to take their final exams, but had “passed the difficult [test] of dying as martyrs for the sake of the homeland” with flying colors. It added, “Dying as a martyr is the path of excellence and superiority.”

The list included 16-year-old Ahmad Abu Al-Rab, who participated in the February 3 shooting and stabbing attack at Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem in which a female Israeli Border Guard was killed, and Labib ‘Aazem and Muhammad Zaghlawan, both 17, who carried out the March 2 stabbing attack at Har Bracha, wounding two Israeli soldiers.

PA Dailies: ’16 [Students] Successfully Passed The Difficult Test Of Dying As Martyrs For The Sake Of The Homeland’

Articles in the PA dailies praised the dead students, calling them a source of pride for their families and for the entire Palestinian people. They quoted their relatives’ and friends’ expressions of praise for them and yearning for them, and referred to the teen attackers as martyred by “the bullets of the occupation” while omitting mention of the attacks they had carried out.

Thus, for instance, a front-page article in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which also appeared on page 12, stated: “The places of 16 students was not missing from yesterday’s announcement of the general high school [exam] results. This is despite the fact that the occupation’s bullets ended their lives and prevented them from taking their final exams, as they became martyrs in Paradise. Sixteen [students] passed the difficult [test] of dying as martyrs for the homeland, since dying as a martyr is the path of excellence and supremacy.

“Sixteen boys and girls, seniors in high-school, died as martyrs, leaving behind friends, ambitions, and sorrow in the hearts of their families and loved ones, who had waited for this day to congratulate them. But the bullets of the criminal occupation were swifter, and denied them the opportunity to be a source of joy for their families…”[1]

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The full article in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida

The PA daily Al-Ayyam also quoted friends and relatives of some of the attackers, and, like Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, provided a selective narrative omitting mention of the attacks that they carried out or the victims of those attacks. The article opened by stating: “‘Ali Zaghlawan, the brother of the martyr Muhammad Zaghlawan [who carried out the March 2, 2016 Har Bracha attack], from the village of Qariout near Nablus, who was martyred by the bullets of the occupation near the settlement of Eli on the Nablus-Ramallah road, has been waiting since morning for the publication of the high school final [exam] results, in order to congratulate his brother’s friends [on their scores]. Muhammad’s name should have been among them [i.e. those who received results], especially as he was known for his [scholastic] excellence and diligence…”

The article also quoted the friend of dead student Ahmad Abu Al-Rab, who had participated in the Damascus Gate attack, describing him as having been “martyred by the bullets of the occupation soldiers on the steps of Damascus Gate in Jerusalem.”[2]

Palestinian Honor Students Dedicate Their Success To Palestinian Martyrs

One notable article on the finals results, published by the Palestinian news agency WAFA, focused on honor students who said that they dedicated their success to the martyrs of the Palestinian people. Muhammad Abu Nahla, an honors student majoring in industry, dedicated his success to the martyr ‘Adnan Al-Mashni, killed while attempting to carry out a stabbing attack. Abu Nahla said: “I dedicate my success to the Palestinian leadership and its head President Mahmoud ‘Abbas; to the educational and pedagogical family; to my family and our people; and especially to my friend, the 17-year-old martyr ‘Adnan ‘Aaid Hamed Al-Mashni Al-Halaiqa, from the town of Al-Shayoukh, who was martyred at Beit ‘Einun Junction east of Hebron on January 12, 2016… How I wish that he could have celebrated his success today – but the bullets of the occupation stole him, denying us and his parents of this joy. But we are all proud of the martyr’s death he attained.”[3]

PLO Executive Committee member Ahmed Al-Majdalani also mentioned the martyred students, saying: “In these moments, we feel the absence of 16 students, the martyrs who should have taken the high school finals but who were prevented from taking them by the violent and aggressive occupation forces, who denied joy to their families…”[4]

Endnotes:

[1] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), July 12, 2016.

[2] Al-Ayyam (PA), July 12, 2016.

[3] Wafa.ps, July 11, 2016.

[4] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), July 12, 2016.

Categories: Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian media
Tags: Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian media

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Obama’s Favorite Islamic Terror Group Praises Murderer of 13-Year-Old Girl

June 30, 2016

Obama’s Favorite Islamic Terror Group Praises Murderer of 13-Year-Old Girl, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, June 30, 2016

(Please see also, Terrorist kills 13-year-old in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba. — DM)

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Obama insisted that PA terror boss Abbas had “renounced violence”. This was news to Abbas who had said on television that he was just like Hamas.

“I have to commend President Abbas. He has been somebody who has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security; a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors,” Obama said.

Around the time that Obama visited him, Abbas gave an interview to Putin’s RT in which he claimed that he was just like Hamas.

“As far as I am concerned, there is no difference between our policies and those of Hamas. So why are they labeled as terrorists? In my opinion, [the EU] can remove Hamas [from the list], why not?”

The Palestinian Authority terrorist organization promotes and funds terrorism against Americans and Israelis. This includes the latest terror attack in which a Muslim terrorist stabbed a 13-year-old girl to death in her bedroom. The core Fatah organization quickly declared the Muslim man who was shot after murdering the young girl a martyr as Palestinian Media Watch reported.

Fatah’s official Facebook page immediately posted his picture, declaring him a Martyr – “Shahid,” the highest honor achievable in Islam according to the Palestinian Authority.

WAFA, the official PA news agency, likewise honored the terrorist, referring to him as a Martyr – “Shahid.”

According to Palestinian Authority law, the family of today’s murderer will immediately start receiving a monthly PA stipend that the PA pays to the families of all the “Martyrs.”

All of this is funded by the US and overseen by Abbas, the president who won’t run for election, who renounced violence.

Categories: Abbas - man of peace, Fatah, Foreign policy, Hamas, Israel, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes
Tags: Fatah, Foreign Policy, Hamas, Israel, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes

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ISIS-Jordan cell linked to Tel Aviv terror attack

June 10, 2016

ISIS-Jordan cell linked to Tel Aviv terror attack, DEBKAfile, June 9, 2016

Israeli medical and security forces at the scene where a suspect terrorist opened fire at the Sarona Market shopping center in tel Aviv, on June 8, 2016. The suspect shot and wounded 9 people, one of them critically injured, in a suspected terror attack in the center of the city. Photo by Ben Kelmer/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** ?? ???? ???? ????? ????? ????? ??? ???? ???????

Israeli medical and security forces at the scene where a suspect terrorist opened fire at the Sarona Market shopping center in tel Aviv, on June 8, 2016.

Khaled al-Mahmara, one of the two Palestinian cousins who opened fire at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv Wednesday night, killing three Israelis and injuring 17, was a member of a secret ISIS cell at al-Mutah University in al Karak, Jordan. He was in a mission to lead mass terror attacks in Israel, to be orchestrated from Jordan.

DEBKAfile terrorism experts report that this university has become a hotbed of extremist Islamist terrorists with cells that are almost all linked operationally or ideologically to the Islamic State.

Muhammad Al-Dala’een, the son of a Jordanian Parliament member, who crossed the border from Jordan to Iraq and joined the terror organization, blew himself up 10 months ago in a suicide attack near Mosul. Al-Dala’een was a student at al-Mutah University.

Eight months ago, a Jordanian officer started shooting at a police training facility, murdering three foreign instructors – two Americans and a South-African. This officer, Captain Anwar Abu Zaid, was a graduate of al-Mutah University and proven by an investigation to be tied to clandestine ISIS terror cells operating there.

DEBKAfile sources say that Jordanian General Intelligence has been co-opted to the Israeli investigation of the Tel Aviv outrage. Both agencies view the Sarona Market attack as a continuation of the wave of ISIS attacks that began on Monday at Jordanian Intelligence Headquarters in the Baqaa Palestinian camp near Amman, which left five intelligence officers dead.

TerrorMaxBrener480

DEBKAfile reported Wednesday:

Two terrorists, dressed in white button-down shirts, ties and black pants, both from Yatta village in southern Mount Hebron, entered a restaurant near the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and ordered food, then took out Karl Gustav sub-machine guns and started shooting at people seated inside the restaurant.

As a result, in one of the most harrowing shooting attacks in the current wave of Palestinian terror, at least 3 Israelis were murdered and 4 fighting for their lives in the Ichilov Hospital operating rooms. Two more are slightly and moderately wounded.

One of the two terrorists was captured and the other wounded and transferred to a hospital.

Tel Aviv District Police chief Chico Edry said that there is currently no information regarding more terrorists, and called for the residents of Tel Aviv to return to normal. This call, other than the attempt to reassure, is of no great value, because just as Commander Edry had no prior information on the shooting attack, he has no information on what is going to happen in the next hours and days.

Commander Edry also exposes the fact that Israeli security forces did not detect the news running through the social networks since Wednesday morning, claiming that an armed terrorist squad has reached Tel Aviv with the intent to carry out a terror attack.

The fact is that these terrorist were declared missing by the PA a day ago. One would assume that the word of their disappearance did not reach the ears of the GSS and the Military Intelligence who are usually coordinated with their counterparts in Ramallah.

There is no doubt that this attack was well planned for a long time.

The terrorists were armed with two Karl Gustav sub-machine guns, cartridges and knives. It appears they had excellent preliminary intelligence: The Sarona Market has countless entrances and exits and in fact it is impossible to check those entering or leaving the compound.

The proximity to the Defense Ministry and to the IDF Headquarters, the two most secure Israeli facilities, located in the Kirya in Tel Aviv, makes the compound a target of terrorist attacks. With these attacks the Palestinians wish to demonstrate that they can reach these facilities and the surrounding area.

Undoubtedly, there was someone who armed the terrorists, instructed them how to load the weapons, manipulate jams and change cartridges, and how to choose the seating at the restaurant from which they observed the victims prior to the attack.

The fact that the terrorists split and then opened fire on two fronts slightly apart, indicates that someone trained them on a method that will produce the maximum number of Israeli casualties. Their intention was to escape after the attack in two different directions, while sowing panic among the general public in the area.

Categories: Islam and Jews, Islam and terrorism, Islamic State, Israeli security, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists
Tags: Islam and Jews, Islam and terrorism, Islamic State, Israeli security, Jordan, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists

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‘Uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood’

June 9, 2016

‘Uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood’, Israel Hayom, Ruthie Blum, June 9, 2016

The rest of us in Israel, meanwhile, will be treated by the international community to reprimands about the need for peace, just as we are already being bombarded on local talk shows with the urgency for “an agreement with the Palestinians.” Like the terrorist attacks themselves, these pronouncements are repeated virtually without let-up.

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An Israeli parliamentarian who arrived on the scene of Wednesday night’s Palestinian terrorist attack in Tel Aviv summed up in a phrase what terrorism is all about.

“Uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood,” is how Likud MK Amir Ohana described what he encountered in the immediate aftermath of the shooting spree at the Max Brenner chocolate shop and cafe in the Sarona shopping complex.

No matter how precisely witnesses describe the attacks Israelis experience on a regular basis — the fear, the screams, and the killings — it is rare for words to capture carnage so well.

Yes, “uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood” tells us everything we need to know about the setting and its significance in the twisted, brainwashed minds of young people in the Palestinian Authority. It is precisely what the two young men, relatives from the village of Yatta near Hebron who brought makeshift assault rifles with them to an eatery on a summer’s eve, had envisioned. It was exactly their goal to slaughter Jews, some of them in casual dress and flip-flops, enjoying a respite from the oppressive heat of the day, others dressed to the nines, celebrating personal milestones.

Indeed, “uneaten birthday cakes next to pools of blood” says it all. It is a reminder of the funerals that will soon take place and the devastation entire families will feel for the rest of their lives; the months of physical rehabilitation and trauma awaiting those who were injured; and the tears of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters praying at bedsides.

“You never get used to it,” said a surgeon from the Sourasky Medical Center, where the wounded — among them one of the two terrorists — are being treated.

The rest of us in Israel, meanwhile, will be treated by the international community to reprimands about the need for peace, just as we are already being bombarded on local talk shows with the urgency for “an agreement with the Palestinians.” Like the terrorist attacks themselves, these pronouncements are repeated virtually without let-up.

The difference this time is the addition of the discussion about how Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s new defense minister, who assumed his role only last week, is going to meet the challenge, particularly as a proponent of the death penalty for terrorists, which the Jewish state does not have. Natch.

This is something the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem and Gaza are keenly aware of, along with the knowledge that if they engage in particularly gruesome violence, they will be hailed as heroes by their society and leaders. Those who are killed while murdering Jews can look forward not only to paradise in the afterlife, but being martyrs after whom sports arenas, cultural events and streets are named.

Thankfully, Lieberman — whose alleged first order of business over the weekend was to strike terrorist bases in Syria — did not talk politics. Instead, he gave a brief press conference at the scene of the attack with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had just landed in Tel Aviv from a two-and-a-half-day trip to Russia, ostensibly to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of full diplomatic relations with Moscow, but really to cement growing ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is the sad but necessary upshot of the Obama administration’s attitude toward Israel in particular and the Middle East in general.

Netanyahu understands that he has to have an alternative ally on whom to rely when it comes to safeguarding Israel from the dangers posed by the civil war in Syria, chief among them Iran’s presence and Palestinian proxy Hezbollah. Oh, and there’s the Islamic State group, too, which is also increasing its foothold in the Sinai, along Israel’s southern border, adjacent to Gaza. You know, where Hamas continues to build tunnels through which to smuggle weapons and kidnap and kill Israelis.

For his part, Putin is only too happy to oblige and replace the United States as the world’s superpower, a status his country lost when the Soviet Union fell 26 years ago. And the Palestinian “problem” was no more connected to that past event than it is to today’s global reality. It is simply a convenient excuse employed to hold Israel accountable and responsible for all ills. It is the politically correct contemporary anti-Semitic outlook, according to which Jews control the world.

What a hoot. We can’t even eat our birthday cakes at a chocolate shop without pools of our blood being spilled.

Categories: Defense of Israel, Fatah, Hamas, Hate groups, Islam and Jews, Israel, Israel and Russia, Leftist perspectives, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinians and media, Peace process, Ramadan terrorist attacks
Tags: Defense of Israel, Fatah, Hamas, Hate groups, Islam and Jews, Israel, Israel and Russia, Leftist perspectives, Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinians and media, Peace Process, Ramadan terrorist attacks

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