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Europe’s New Media Darlings: Terrorists

October 1, 2016

Europe’s New Media Darlings: Terrorists, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, October 1, 2016

It is such a shame and an irony that terrorists who have killed and ordered the killing of unarmed and innocent Jews, are now being celebrated as Europe’s apostles of peace.

Can you imagine Italian or French mayors and members of Parliament naming a street after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who murdered at least 84 people in Nice on July 14? Or honoring the brothers Salah and Brahim Abdesalem for their attack at the Bataclan Theater in Paris on November 13, 2015, in which 89 people were murdered?

What would have happened if the city council of Jerusalem had conferred the honorary citizenship on Italy’s Mafia leader, Totò Riina, calling him a “political prisoner”? What would have happened if the city council of Tel Aviv had named a street after Giovanni Brusca, the Mafia butcher who kidnapped and tortured the 11-year-old son of another mafioso who had betrayed him, and then dissolved the boy’s body in acid? The Italian government would have vehemently protested. With Palestinian terrorists, however, there is another standard, as if in the eyes of many of Italy’s city councils, terror against Israeli Jews is actually justified.

In the pro-Palestinian credentials of the mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, the only item missing was giving honorary citizenship to a Palestinian terrorist. Bilal Kayed is anything but a “man of peace.” He is a dangerous Palestinian terrorist who spent 14 years in Israeli prisons for two shooting attacks, and for planning and attempting the (unsuccessful) kidnapping of a soldier. Kayed is now a new honorary citizen of Naples.

“[It is] a decision that harms the image of Naples”, protested the newly elected president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Noemi Di Segni. Meanwhile, Naples city council has refused to grant honorary citizenship to the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.

It is not the first time that Mayor De Magistris embraces anti-Israel militancy. The city of Naples provided a municipal room to show a documentary called, “Israel, The Cancer,” which shamefully compares Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Israel’s Ambassador to Italy, Naor Gilon, protested against the screening and noted that “the film’s title, ‘Israel, The Cancer’, is reminiscent of dark eras in the Italian and European history, in which Jews were defined as a disease.”

De Magistris also received reciprocal “Palestinian citizenship” from the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the mayor of Naples returned the favor by granting honorary citizenship to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. De Magistris also gave his support to the “Freedom Flotilla,” a convoy of ships that tried to bring weapons to the Hamas regime in Gaza. Eleonora De Majo, a candidate on De Magistris’ political list, also called the Israelis “pigs.”

De Magistris is not the only Italian mayor who apparently prizes Palestinian terrorism. Palermo’s mayor, Leoluca Orlando, awarded honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian terrorist who orchestrated attacks that killed several people and who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.

Many of Europe’s streets are plastered with the names of the Palestinian terrorists. The French town of Valenton named a street for Marwan Barghouti; and a few days after a priest was slaughtered this summer in France, a group of French cities planned to honor Barghouti. Towns such as Pierrefitte-sur-Seine have already awarded him honorary citizenship, and a photograph of the Palestinian terror leader was hung on the front of its city hall.

Barghouti, who masterminded the 2002 attack at the Seafood Market in Tel Aviv and a massacre in Hadera which killed six Israelis, is a man Europe’s television stations love to show handcuffed with his arms raised. He is Europe’s idol, a hero, an icon. The Guardian even published an op-ed piece by Barghouti, in which he expresses support for the “Third Intifada” of stabbing- and shooting-attacks and car-rammings.

1918The mayor of Palermo, Italy, Leoluca Orlando (left), awarded honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti (right), the Palestinian terrorist who orchestrated attacks that killed several people and who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.

The Western press loves Barghouti and even tries to compare him to Nelson Mandela, in articles such as “The Question of Barghouti: Is He a Mandela or an Arafat?” (Time); “A Mideast Mandela” (Newsweek) and “A Nelson Mandela for the Palestinians” (New York Times).

Twenty French cities, such as Vitry-sur-Seine, La Verrière and Montataire, have granted honorary citizenship to this terrorist and plastered their streets with his disgraceful name. The Jeu de Paume National Gallery in Paris hosted an exhibition calling Palestinian suicide bombers “martyrs.” The exhibit “Death”, by photographer Ahlam Shibli, featured Palestinian suicide bombers with captions that promote the jihadist agenda of glorifying their deaths.

Bezons, an urban conglomerate just 10 kilometers from Paris, was also the first French town officially to include among its honorary citizenship the Palestinian terrorist, Majdi Rimawi, who planned and carried out the assassination of Israel’s Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. Rimawi, who sits in an Israeli prison, was immortalized in a plaque prepared by the city of Bezons in 2013, which labels the terrorist as a “political prisoner.”

The mayor of Bezons, Dominique Lesparre, held a public speech in which he called Rimawi a “victim.” In the official document issued by Bezons City Hall, entitled “Prisonnier et citoyen d’honneur,” the fact that Rimawi is a murderer was not even mentioned.

It is such a shame and an irony that terrorists who have killed and ordered the killing of unarmed and innocent Jews, are now being celebrated as Europe’s apostles of peace. They are now even the new media darlings.

Can you imagine Italian or French mayors and members of Parliament naming a street after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who murdered at least 84 people in Nice on July 14? Or honoring the brothers Salah and Brahim Abdesalem for their attack at the Bataclan Theater in Paris on November 13, 2015, in which 89 people were murdered? Or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was linked to nearly every al-Qaeda attack between 1993 and 2003?

Categories: Antisemitism, Europe, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists
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Ending the Palestinian Exception

September 27, 2016

Ending the Palestinian Exception, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, September 27, 2016

palestinian_demonstration_against_demolish_of_the_village_susya-e1433517117362

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

Ahead of Monday night’s first presidential debate, Rudolph Giuliani – former New York mayor and Republican nominee Donald Trump’s current adviser – spoke at the Israeli American Council’s annual conference. Four days of intense debate preparation with Trump preceded the talk. Giuliani insisted the time has come for the US to “reject the whole notion of a two-state solution in Israel.”

It can only be hoped that regardless of who prevails in November, Giuliani’s statement will become the official position of the next US administration.

In his speech before the UN General Assembly last week PLO and Fatah chief and unelected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said many things to drive home the basic point that he is not interested in peace with Israel. He is interested in destroying Israel. But one particular demand stands out.

It stands out not because it is new. It isn’t new.

Abbas says it all the time and his advisers say it all the time. They say it to Palestinian and international audiences alike, and it always is met with support or at least sympathy.

Abbas demanded that Israel stop arresting Palestinian terrorists and release all Palestinian terrorists from its prisons. That is, he demanded that Israel allow thousands of convicted terrorists to walk free and refrain from doing anything to interfere with terrorists engaged planning and carrying out the murder of its citizens.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians support this demand. And so does the US government.

During US Secretary of State John Kerry’s failed peace process in 2013-14, President Barack Obama and Kerry embraced Abbas’s demand that Israel release 104 terrorist murderers from its prisons as a precondition for agreeing to negotiate with the Jewish state.

Bowing to US pressure, Israel released 78 terrorists from its jails in three tranches. Ahead of the fourth scheduled release, Abbas and his advisers bragged that they would cut off talks with Israel as soon as the last group of terrorist murderers were released.

That is, they admitted that the negotiations, such as they were, were nothing more than a means to achieve the goal of freeing murderers.

Rather than condemn Abbas and his colleagues for their cynical bad faith and repulsive immorality, the Obama administration chastised Israel for refusing to play along. When Israel responded to their statements by refusing to release the last group of 26 convicted terrorists, the administration accused Israel of breaching the terms of the negotiations.

Obama, Kerry and their advisers held Israel responsible for the talks’ failure.

It’s important to consider what Abbas’s demand for free-range terrorists says about him. It is important to ponder what the fact that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians are partners in this demand says about them as a society.

And it is worth pondering as well the strategic rationality and moral stature of a US government that supports this position.

As far as Abbas and the Palestinians are concerned, their refusal to view mass murderers as criminals tells us a great deal about who they are and what they want.

The Palestinian national movement they have come to embody was never about a deep-seated desire for national liberation. It was never about building “Palestine.”

From the time it was created by Amin el-Husseini in 1920, Palestinian identity has been about the negation of the Jewish national liberation movement – Zionism. And since Israel achieved independence in 1948, the Palestinians have defined themselves by their collective dedication to annihilating the Jewish state – hence their support for terrorists who kill Jews.

Husseini’s heir Yasser Arafat shared his view that terrorism was a both strategic goal in and of itself and a means to achieve the ultimate end of the Palestinian movement – that is, the violent eradication of Israel.

As the heir to both men, Abbas, like his sometimes partners and sometimes rivals in Hamas, has never been interested in building anything. And indeed, he hasn’t.

Consider what is loosely referred to as the “Palestinian economy.”

In an article published this week by the Hebrew-language online journal Mida, economist Uri Redler showed that the Palestinian economy isn’t actually an economy. It is an extortion racket.

Using World Bank data, Redler showed that the Palestinian economy is an optical illusion. In its 22 years of existence, the PA has almost entirely destroyed the private sector in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Seventy-five percent of its tax income comes from indirect taxes that Israel collects for it on imports. Forty percent of its budget comes from donors. Only 18% of it income comes from direct taxation. And most of that comes from deduction at source of PA employees.

Since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, only 15% of foreign aid toward the reconstruction of Gaza has been used for reconstruction projects. The rest of the money has been used as discretionary funds by Hamas. Seventy percent of the funds have come from American and EU taxpayers. This means that the US and the EU have been directly funding Hamas terrorists.

It is not surprising that the aid has been diverted.

And it is not surprising that the US and the EU have continued to provide money they know is being diverted by Hamas.

Hamas, like Fatah, has no interest in developing a Palestinian economy. Economic development doesn’t bring in the money. Terrorism does. Palestinians with economic freedom won’t be dependent on the likes of Abbas and his Hamas counterparts for their livelihoods. So they block all independent paths to prosperity.

Rather than build roads, the PA and Hamas pay people to kill Jews. The more Jews you kill, the more money you receive.

They can maintain this policy because the US and Europe pay them to do so. The more terrorism they commit, the more headlines the Palestinians receive. And the more headlines they receive, the more money they are paid by the UN and Western governments – to advance the cause of the “twostate solution.”

This then brings us to the US and Europe, and their unstinting support for Palestinian demands for the release of terrorists. What are they thinking? Earlier this month Prof. Eugene Kontorovich of Northwestern University Law School and the Kohelet Forum published a paper on the international community’s general interpretation of paragraph 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Protocol from 1949. The relevant clause states that an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

As Kontorovich noted, this clause the forms the basis of the international community’s constant refrain that Israeli communities built beyond the 1949 armistice lines in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are illegal.

In other words, it forms the basis of the West’s case against Israel and, by extraction, for the Palestinians’.

Just last week during his speech before the UN General Assembly, Obama attacked Israel for its continued settlement activity.

Kontorovich investigated the same international community’s view of communities built by citizens of a dozen other states in lands occupied by their governments in armed conflicts.

He noted that the activities of Moroccans in the Western Sahara, of Turks in Northern Cyprus, of Indonesians in East Timor and of other nationals in multiple other territories are legally indistinguishable from Israel’s activities in the areas it took control over from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

In none of these other cases, however, has the US, EU, UN or any other international or national authority ever invoked the Fourth Geneva Convention or otherwise claimed that those activities are a breach of international law. In other words, the legal basis for the criminalization and political condemnation of Israel in relation to the Palestinians is entirely specious and discriminatory.

In other words, US support for the so-called two state solution, like the international community’s support for it, is really just a means of discriminating against Israel. It does not advance the cause of peace or justice, for Israelis or for Palestinians. It merely empowers terrorist gangsters to kill Israelis and extort both the Palestinians and the international community.

So again, Giuliani is absolutely right.

Categories: Abbas, Fatah, Israel - release of Palestinian terrorists, Israel and human rights, Israel settlements, Israeli security, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian economy, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Two state solution, United Nations
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Between obvious and oblivious

September 25, 2016

Between obvious and oblivious, Israel Hayom, Smadar Bat Adam, September 25, 2016

Imagine if U.S. President Barack Obama, in his last speech before the U.N. General Assembly last week, would have opened by saying: “Eight years ago, when I was sworn in to office, I didn’t know much about the conflict in the Middle East or its origins. With the naivete of a novice, but with a great deal of desire to do good things for the world, I saw conflicts across the globe in black and white. I was sure that anywhere occupation existed, the job of the most powerful Western democracy was to draw the push the occupier back and liberate the occupied.”

Imagine that he would have finished by declaring: “Ladies and gentlemen, I was wrong. I didn’t believe in the existence of an occupied people who don’t yearn for peace. I couldn’t accept that there were people for whom destroying the occupier was more important than independence. After all, it goes against logic that the occupier isn’t the aggressor, but is the one defending himself.”

Now imagine that he would have added, “Today, when the entire world is under the threat of Islamist jihad, I understand. Israel is not the problem. Israel is the symptom. And the settlements are not the obstacle to peace; rather the obstacle is the refusal of the Palestinians, particularly of their leadership, to recognize the fact that Israel is the land and national home of the Jewish people. And the terror which Israel suffers is the same terror determined to kill anyone who doesn’t share its beliefs, which is why we should all stand by the State of Israel.”

Picture Obama expressing, even in milder terms, what many Europeans are already saying openly: “Obviously most Muslims are not involved in terrorism, but all terrorists are Muslim.” And think what a commotion that would have caused at the United Nations; and how those words could have disarmed U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who always has an accusatory finger ready to point at Israel.

In reality, however, what we heard were the familiar refrains: “Surely, Israelis and Palestinians would be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land.”

There is something of a start here. How joyous, indeed. Regardless, let’s just say it would be nice if the Palestinians would “reject incitement” — just as long as no one, heaven forbid, accuses them of doing the inciting. As for the Israelis, their guilt is clear. They are the occupier. Those who didn’t get it from the speech got it from Obama’s comments to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, albeit in a softened tone, during their much publicized meeting: “The U.S. is concerned about the settlements.”

It’s possible that Obama did not have the time (or the inclination) to learn what most people in the American intelligence community already know, that there is a clear link between Palestinian terrorism and global Islamic terrorism. And it’s quite possible, for various reasons, that this is the legacy he wishes to leave behind. It is also important, of course, to remember that his administration did give Israel a military aid package unprecedented in scope. He has emphasized the unbreakable bond between the countries and the deep concern for the wellbeing of Israel.

Meanwhile, perhaps we should stop focusing on the outgoing president’s swan song and instead help his successor understand this administration’s fundamental error: rejecting the premise that terrorism against Israel is part of fundamentalist Islam’s war of civilizations against the West. Let us hope that in a year’s time this will all be obvious, and we won’t have to imagine anymore. As Herzl would say: If you will it …

Categories: Israel - Jewish state, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews
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Obama’s Parting Shot at Israel

September 22, 2016

Obama’s Parting Shot at Israel, Front Page Magazine, Ari Lieberman, September 22, 2016

unobama

Obama’s last address before the UN General Assembly was typically and predictably condescending, hypocritical, disingenuous and vainglorious. He used the opportunity to perform some electioneering and take a swipe at Donald Trump. “Today, a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself,” he said in a not too subtle reference to Trump’s promised plans to secure the southern border with the construction of a wall and restrict immigration from high-risk countries.

France, a NATO ally that has partnered with the U.S. to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan and Islamic extremism in Mali, was also derided. Though he did not mention France by name, he criticized “liberal societies” for their “opposition to women who choose to cover themselves.” This of course was a veiled reference French laws banning Burkas and Burkinis, items of Islamic clothing that are oppressive to and denigrate women.

Of course, Obama made no mention of the Paris and Nice massacres. Nor did he note that as a result of Muslim violence, 70 percent of Europe’s Jews won’t be attending synagogue during the Jewish High-Holy Days. Obama did of course heap praise on Indonesia, a Muslim nation that discriminates against minorities and the LGBT community, still maintains so-called “blasphemy” laws, and imposes draconian Sharia law in some districts. This year, a 60-year old Christian-Indonesian woman was given 28 lashes for selling alcohol. This is the model nation that the president touts before the world community.

The vainglorious president also took the opportunity to tout his disastrous Iran deal, noting that the United States “resolved the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy.” Obama, however, failed to note that he inked the worst deal in U.S. diplomatic history and likely the worst deal since the 1938 Munich Accord. He also omitted the fact that the infusion of $150 billion into Iran’s anemic economy will enable the mullahs to continue to sow misery throughout the region.

Of course, no Obama speech would be complete without the perfunctory assault on Israel. What better place to attack the Jewish state than before a body that is today’s greatest purveyor of anti-Semitism, where anti-Israel invective flows like water and where the Jewish state is incessantly vilified?

Recognizing of course that referring to Jews as “apes and pigs” is a national Palestinian pastime, Obama reminded the Palestinians to play nicely before directing his invective against Israel.

“Surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land,” he said.

There are two egregious problems with Obama’s statement. First, it is insufficient for the Palestinian Authority to merely “recognize the legitimacy of Israel.”

Israel has made clear that the PA must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The PA has rejected this demand outright because they envision a future Palestinian state, exclusively for Palestinians, in Judea/Samaria and an entity that calls itself “Israel” composed of Jews as well as Palestinian Muslims, thereby negating the Jewish character of the state.

That represents the crux of the problem. Palestinian Muslims will never recognize the indigenousness of Jews in their ancestral land. Any peace agreement without such recognition is inherently flawed and sets the stage for more bloody conflict. In terms of strategy, there is absolutely no difference between the PA and Hamas. Both aspire to the ultimate goal of establishing a Muslim Arab state from the River to the Sea. The only difference is tactics. The PA has adopted a more practical and deceitful approach toward achieving their ultimate objective (though every once in a while they slip and reveal their true colors) while Hamas is frighteningly and brutishly honest.

The second problem is that Judea and Samaria is neither “occupied” nor is it “Palestinian land.” It is a territory that is the subject of a bonafide dispute between two parties with competing claims.

From a legal perspective, Israel’s claim has more merit. In 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Israel/Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. General Assembly resolutions have no binding legal authority. The Jews accepted partition, but the Arabs rejected it. Had they accepted it, the matter would have been settled and an agreement would have validated the GA resolution and made it legally binding under international law.

During the War of 1948 that followed, Jordan seized Judea and Samaria as well as the eastern portion of Jerusalem and annexed these territories. Only Pakistan fully recognized Jordan’s illegal annexation, while England’s recognition was limited to Judea and Samaria. The territory was occupied by Jordan for 19 years and during those 19 years, Jewish institutions were reduced to rubble while Jewish headstones in the Mount of Olives cemetery were used to build latrines for the Jordanian army.

In June 1967, Jordan’s monarch, fed on a steady diet of fantasy-like falsehoods of Israel’s impending demise, attacked Israel with Hawker Hunter jets and artillery. Israel responded to the provocation and liberated Jerusalem as well as Judea and Samaria in a matter of days.

The UN considers war and conquests therefrom to be illegal, but Article 52 of the UN Charter provides an exception to the illegality of war in cases involving self-defense. The Six-Day War was as clear as they come in terms of self-defense. Israel acquired these lands through defensive conquest. Never in the history of mankind has a nation been compelled to return territories — acquired in the course of a defensive war — to an aggressor entity.

Following the war and after many months of haggling, the UN Security Council, which has the power to establish international law, passed Resolution 242. The resolution called upon Israel to withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.” Notably, the word “all” was deliberately omitted thus giving implicit recognition to Israeli territorial conquests. One can reasonably argue that Israel has fully complied with Resolution 242 by virtue of its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, some 40 percent of Judea and Samaria and Quneitra on the Golan Heights, and that no further territorial withdrawals are required.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that two Jewish commonwealths existed on territories now claimed as “occupied” hundreds of years before Mohammedan colonizers set foot on the land. It would be more precise to refer to the territories as “re-occupied,” in deference to the indigenous inhabitants of the land.

Obama likely knows all this but couldn’t resist taking a parting shot at Israel. That he would choose to do it in a forum that is infamous for its anti-Semitic vitriol speaks volumes of the man.

Categories: Abbas, Islamist terror attacks, Israel - Jewish state, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, United Nations
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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

abbaskgb

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
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Palestinians: The “Mountain of Fire” Erupts Against Abbas

August 25, 2016

Palestinians: The “Mountain of Fire” Erupts Against Abbas, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, August 25, 2016

♦ The Palestinian Authority is now paying the price for harboring, funding and inciting gang members and militiamen who until recently were hailed by many Palestinians as “heroes” and “resistance fighters.”

♦ Hamas’s dream of extending its control to the West Bank now seems more realistic than ever — unless Mahmoud Abbas wakes up and realizes that he made a big mistake by authorizing local and municipal elections.

♦ The blood pouring out in Nablus and other Palestinian towns is proof that Abbas is on his way to losing control over the West Bank, just as he lost Gaza to Hamas in 2007. In an emergency meeting held on August 25 in Nablus, several Palestinian factions and figures reached agreement that it would be impossible to hold the vote under the current circumstances.

Hours after his security officers lynched a detainee, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinian businessmen living abroad to support the Palestinian economy by investing in the Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority (PA), he asserted, was “working to provide security and safety to encourage investment.”

According to Abbas, “The Palestinian territories are living in a state of security stability, which we are working to provide for residents and investors alike by enforcing the rule of law and enhancing transparency and accountability.”

It must be nice to create your own reality, especially if your true reality is that of the 81-year-old Abbas.

In his speech before the businessmen, Abbas neglected any reference to the latest wave of “security chaos” in PA-controlled areas in the West Bank, specifically Nablus, the largest Palestinian city.

Five Palestinians, including two PA police officers, were killed in the worst scenes of internecine violence to hit the West Bank in recent years. Abbas was either playing the businessmen for fools or hoping that they share his deaf and blind state.

The violence in Nablus did not come as a surprise to those who have been monitoring the situation in the West Bank in recent months.

In fact, scenes of lawlessness and “security chaos” have become part of the norm in many Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps — a sign that the PA may be losing control to armed gangs and militias. Palestinians refer to the situation as falatan amni, or “security chaos.” An article published in Gatestone in June referred to the growing instances of anarchy and lawlessness in PA-controlled areas in the West Bank, first and foremost Nablus.

Palestinians refer to Nablus as the “Mountain of Fire” — a reference to the countless armed attacks carried out against Israelis by residents of the city since 1967. Current events in Nablus, however, have shown how easily fire burns the arsonist. The Palestinian Authority is now paying the price for harboring, funding and inciting gang members and militiamen who until recently were hailed by many Palestinians as “heroes” and “resistance fighters.” Unsurprisingly, most of these “outlaws” and “criminals” (as the PA describes them) are affiliated in one way or another with Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

Nablus, the so-called Mountain of Fire, is now threatening to turn into a volcano that is set to erupt in the face of Abbas and his PA government.

The situation in Nablus the past few days raises serious questions about the ability of the PA to perform basic security measures and rein in armed gangs and militiamen. Moreover, the unprecedented violence has further shattered Palestinian confidence in the PA and its leaders ahead of the local and municipal elections, scheduled to take place on October 8.

Hamas’s dream of extending its control to the West Bank now seems more realistic than ever. Under the current circumstances, Abbas would be offering the West Bank to Hamas on a silver platter — unless he wakes up and realizes that he made a big mistake by authorizing the local and municipal elections.

And the businessmen who met with Abbas? One might guess that they are sophisticated enough to avoid a doomed investment. Nablus will no doubt do the trick: they are likely to go running from the mayhem of the PA-controlled territories.

Things lately began to unravel when on August 18, in the Old City of Nablus, two Palestinian Authority security officers, Shibli bani Shamsiyeh and Mahmoud Taraira, were killed in an armed clash with gunmen.

Hours later, PA policemen shot dead two Palestinian gunmen who were allegedly involved in the killing of the officers. The two were identified as Khaled Al-Aghbar and Ali Halawah. The families of the two men accused the PA of carrying out an “extrajudicial” killing, and claimed their sons were captured alive and only afterwards shot dead. The families called for an independent commission of inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the killing of their sons. Palestinian human rights organizations have also joined the call for an inquiry into the killings.

1809On August 18, two Palestinian Authority policemen were killed in an armed clash with gunmen in Nablus (left). In April of this year, a fierce gun battle erupted between Palestinian Authority policemen and members of the Jaradat clan in the refugee camp of Jenin (right). The clash started during an attempt to arrest a clan member.

In June, two other PA security officers, Anan Al-Tabouk and Uday Al-Saifi, were also killed in a shootout with gunmen in Nablus. The PA claimed that “outlaws” were behind the killings and vowed to punish the culprits.

Tensions in Nablus reached their peak on August 23, when scores of PA policemen lynched Ahmed Halawah, a former policeman suspected of leading a notorious gang belonging to Abbas’s Fatah faction. Halawah was beaten to death by PA policemen shortly after he was arrested and taken to the PA-run Jneid Prison in Nablus.

The PA leadership, which has since admitted that Halawah was lynched by its policemen, says it has ordered an inquiry into the case. Its leaders have described the lynching as an “unacceptable mistake.”

The lynching of the detainee sparked widespread protests throughout the West Bank, with many Palestinians calling for an immediate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the case and demanding that those responsible be brought to trial.

The Palestinian Bar Association issued a statement strongly condemning the lynching of Halawah as a “crime and a human rights violation.” The Association called for holding those responsible, adding, “The regrettable and painful events, including the crime of killing Ahmed Halawah, do not serve the interest of the citizen or homeland and deepens divisions in our society.” It also called on the PA and its security forces to abide by the law and honor the human rights of the Palestinians and their public freedoms.

Alarmed by the widespread condemnations of the lynching of Halawah, some Palestinian Authority officials began issuing direct and veiled threats against Palestinian critics.

Palestinian lawyer Wael Al-Hazam, who called on Abbas to “withdraw” his security forces from Nablus, was visited by unidentified gunmen who sprayed his house with 14 bullets. The attorney and his family members were not hurt in the shooting attack, which was clearly designed to send a warning message to anyone who dared to raise his or her voice against human rights abuses by the PA security forces. And in this instance, the message arrived.

Shortly after the attack on his house, the lawyer issued a statement in which he said, “14 bullets are enough to silence me. I’m a man of the law and I cannot face bullets. My pen and voice are the only weapon I have. I do not possess armed militias to defend myself.” The attack on his house came shortly after PA security officers threatened the lawyer, warning him against appearing on a TV show to discuss the latest wave of violence in his city.

The turmoil in Nablus has prompted many Palestinians to call on Abbas to make a decision to postpone the upcoming municipal election in their city. In an emergency meeting held on August 25 in Nablus, several Palestinian factions and figures reached agreement that it would be impossible to hold the vote under the current circumstances.

Sarhan Dweikat, a senior member of Abbas’s Fatah, said that an election delay was needed, to

“protect the social fabric and preserve our national project, which is facing an existential threat in light of the security chaos and anarchy in Nablus. … Conditions in Nablus do not provide a positive climate for holding elections.”

It is hard to see how Abbas, delusional as he appears to be, would heed the calls to postpone the local and municipal elections. His pathetic attempt to persuade Palestinian businessmen to invest their money in PA-controlled areas at a time when the flames are engulfing his backyard is yet another sign of the man’s refusal — or inability — to see the reality on the ground.

This is the same president who claims that he is seeking to lead his people toward statehood and a better future. Incredibly, Abbas can probably continue to fool world leaders into believing that he and the Palestinian Authority are prepared for statehood. Yet the blood pouring out in Nablus and other Palestinian cities and villages is proof positive that Abbas is on his way to losing control over the West Bank, just as he lost the Gaza Strip to Hamas in 2007. If until now it seemed that Hamas posed the biggest threat to Abbas’s rule over the West Bank, it is now obvious that that is not so. The real threat, as brought home in blood in the West Bank, is coming from Abbas’s homegrown loyalists-turned-rebels.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Palestinian Authority elections, Palestinian economy, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians, West Bank
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The truth about humanitarian aid

August 7, 2016

The truth about humanitarian aid, Israel Hayom, Ariel Bolstein, August 7, 2016

The reports surrounding the arrest of Mohammad Halabi, director of the Gaza branch of the humanitarian organization World Vision, have sent shockwaves throughout the globe. This is a well-known, worldwide charity organization — one of the world’s largest in fact — that purports to help third world children.

As it turns out, when it comes to the Gaza Strip, the money donated by charitable individuals in Europe, Australia and the U.S. went mainly to help Hamas’ military wing. Among other things, the money was used toward purchasing weapons in Sinai, digging attack tunnels and paying the salaries of terrorists and their families.

The Hamas murderers did not stop there. They accepted thousands of food packages as well as other supplies intended for the poor. When devout Christian worshippers in churches across the U.S. donated a dollar or two to “those poor children,” the smiling faces on the receiving end were Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

More than half of the organization’s annual aid budget was funneled directly to Hamas. In total , the terror organization received between 40-50 million dollars and this may just be the tip of the iceberg, as there are other humanitarian groups that have poured tremendous amounts of money into these black holes referred to at times as “rehabilitation of Gaza” and “assistance to the Palestinians.”

For years, World Vision members, including senior officials, contributed to anti-Israel efforts. Time and again they have taken advantage of every possible forum to portray Israel as the culprit behind the suffering of Palestinian children. Never ones to be confused by the facts, they neglected to mention that they knew very well that Hamas was using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields, launching rockets at Israel from residential neighborhoods and storing weapons at schools.

Not a word of condemnation for Hamas was ever heard. But with respect to Israel, it has been a festival of lies and false accusations. In 2012, for example, the president of World Vision in the U.S. claimed that Israel had prohibited Christian from Judea and Samaria as well as Gaza from celebrating Easter in Jerusalem. The allegation was completely false (that year Israel granted more than 20,000 permits to travel to Jerusalem for Easter, far more than were requested). Still, the irreparable damage to Israel’s reputation in the eyes of the Christian world was done.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, World Vision has contributed extensively to other anti-Israel endeavors in the years since. For instance, the organization bankrolled a program called “Christ at the Checkpoint,” which aimed to portray Israel to American Christians as the embodiment of all evil. The program appealed to this audience’s most basic emotions: they were asked to imagine Jesus himself being harassed by Israeli soldiers at a border checkpoint. This was, in fact, anti-Semitism of the worst order, playing into the idea that the Jews abused the son of God and now they are abusing other poor souls.

In fact, a large portion of the funding that goes into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement actually comes from innocent donors, who are certain their donations are going toward saving lives in developing countries somewhere in Asia or Africa.

Sadly, World Vision is not the only charity organization that has been dragged into the anti-Israel efforts. Other organizations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have also fallen into the same trap.

All this is happening in a world where there are tens of millions of people who really need charitable assistance, with tens of millions of people in the West who are willing to donate generously to help worthy causes, or so they believe. These kind, naïve donors, are being taken advantage of every day in the most awful of ways.

Categories: "Humanitarian aid", BDS, Corruption, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian children, Palestinian terrorists
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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.

rajoub1

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
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Palestinian Terrorists Incorporating Rat Poison in Attack Plans

August 2, 2016

Palestinian Terrorists Incorporating Rat Poison in Attack Plans, Investigative Project on Terrorism, August 2, 2016

A Palestinian terrorist planned to bomb the Jerusalem light rail last month with an explosive device containing poisonous material, Israeli police said Tuesday.

Ali Abu Hassan – a civil engineering student from a village northwest of Hebron – infiltrated Jerusalem on July 15 armed with three pipe bombs forming a large explosive. The terrorist doused nails and screws fitted on the explosive with rat poison to maximize the carnage.

Hassan researched how to make a bomb that would inflict “the most, and most effective, damage” and “even carried out test explosions with a number of bombs in order to check them before entering Israel,” said the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency.

The investigation revealed that Hassan originally intended to attack a restaurant, but changed his target after seeing numerous civilians boarding Jerusalem’s light rail. A security guard notified police after checking and discovering the explosive in Hassan’s bag after boarding the train.

An Israeli court on Tuesday charged Hassan for building a weapon, attempted murder, and conspiracy.

Another major terrorist plot this year also involved the use of rat poison.

In June, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a Tel Aviv café, killing four civilians and injuring 15 others. According to the indictment, the terrorists also planned to contaminate knives with rat poison and stab Israelis, going so far as to buy the poison, but never executed that part of the plan.

These incidents mark a significant development concerning the recent wave of Palestinian terrorism targeting Israelis. While most individual terrorist initiatives involved rudimentary means for attack – including stabbing and vehicular attacks – these high profile cases show that an educated Palestinian with the motivation to kill Israelis is capable of producing relatively sophisticated terrorist means that can maximize casualties. More importantly, the use of rat poison may signal the emergence of a new trend in which Palestinians seek to exploit unconventional attack methods, including chemical and biological agents, to inflict greater damage and spread fear throughout Israeli society.

Categories: Chemical and biological weapons, Israel, Palestinian terrorists
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Clinton VP tapped pro-terror Muslim leader for immigration seat

July 25, 2016

Clinton VP tapped pro-terror Muslim leader for immigration seat, Israel National News, David Rosenberg, July 25, 2016

(Please see also, Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties. — DM)

Kaine and his administration initially brushed off the criticism as mere Islamophobia.

Yet Omeish’s ties to terror and explicit support for violent Jihad quickly became apparent, ultimately leading Kaine to pressure Omeish to step down.

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Virginia Senator and former Governor Tim Kaine has been the Democratic Party’s presumptive Vice Presidential nominee for just three days, yet the pick has already drawn fire from the pro-Israel community due in part to Kaine’s robust support for the Iran nuclear deal, his boycott of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress in 2015, and his ties to a left-wing NGO.

Now, a controversial appointment made during his tenure as Governor of Virginia has raised new questions about Kaine’s bona fides as a self-described “strongly pro-Israel Democrat”.

In 2007, then-Governor Kaine appointed Esam Omeish, a Libyan-born physician and then-president of the Muslim American Society, to Virginia’s Immigration Commission. This came despite Omeish’s history of ties and expressions of support for radical Islam and Jihadist terrorism.

Omeish is a long-time member of the Board of Directors of the Dar Al Hijrah mosque, which two of the 19 terrorists responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks attended, as friends of the mosque’s imam.

That imam was Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical Salafist cleric who later fled the United States and joined Al-Qaeda, after settling in Yemen.

In 2010, President Obama placed al-Awlaki on the CIA “kill list”, citing his orchestration of deadly terror attacks against Americans. In 2011 a US drone strike killed al-Awlaki in southeast Yemen.

But Omeish was not merely a congregant at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque where al-Awlaki preached; in 2000, he was vice president of the mosque and was responsible for vetting and hiring the radical cleric as the mosque’s imam.

The Muslim American Society, then headed by Omeish, had close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2004, a description later validated by a federal report describing the group as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.”

In addition to Omeish’s ties to radical Islam, his recorded comments prior to the 2007 appointment by Governor Kaine made his support for Jihadist terror even more explicit.

During a December 22, 2000 speech at a Jerusalem Day Rally in Lafayette Park, in Washington D.C., Omeish praised “the Jihad way” to “liberate your land”.

“We, the Muslims of the Washington metropolitan area, are here today in subfreezing temperatures to tell our brothers and sisters in Filastine [Palestine], that you have learned the way, that you have known that the Jihad way is the way to liberate your land. And we, by standing here today, despite the weather, and despite anything else, we are telling them that we are with you, we are supporting you, and we will do everything we can inshallah [Allah willing] to help your cause.”

In 2004, Omeish explicitly praised Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Governor Kaine’s selection of Omeish was criticized by state Republicans, who said the governor had failed to properly vet the appointee.

C. Todd Gilbert, a Republican delegate from Shenandoah County, wrote to the governor, noting the Muslim American Society’s “questionable origins”.

“I don’t know how a problem of this magnitude could have slipped through the Governor’s screening process,” Gilbert later said in a statement. “Even a cursory internet search about the appointee in question would have also easily identified him as a leader of a potentially radical northern Virginia mosque.”

Kaine and his administration initially brushed off the criticism as mere Islamophobia.

Yet Omeish’s ties to terror and explicit support for violent Jihad quickly became apparent, ultimately leading Kaine to pressure Omeish to step down.

 

 

Categories: 2016 elections, Democrats, Hamas, Hillary Clinton, Islamic terrorism, Islamists in America, Israel, Muslim Brotherhood, Palestinian terrorists, Tim Kaine
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