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Trump, the Pistol and Holy Branch

January 17, 2017

Trump, the Pistol and Holy Branch, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, January 17, 2017

donald_trump

Sunday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the Paris conference as a “futile” relic of a period that is about to end.

Netanyahu said that the conference’s goal of boxing Israel into an untenable framework for dealing the Palestinians was nothing more than the “final palpitations of a yesterday’s world.”

“Tomorrow,” he intoned, “will look a lot different. And tomorrow is very close.”

Trump will take office on Friday. Since he was elected, he has given every reason to believe that Abbas and his deputies and their European and American enablers will have to either put up or shut up.

***********************************

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

With a gun on his hip, on November 13, 1974, PLO chief Yasser Arafat stood before the UN General Assembly and made the West an offer that it didn’t refuse.

At the end of a long speech in which he rewrote history to erase all connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel and criminalized the very notion of Jewish freedom, Arafat declared, “Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”

Arafat’s offer has served since that time as the foundation of European relations with the Palestinians and the wider Islamic world. It has also been the basis of US-PLO relations for the better part of the past four decades.

His trade was simple and clear.

If you stand with the PLO in its war to annihilate Israel and deny Jewish freedom, then PLO terrorists and our Arab state supporters will leave you alone.

If you refuse to join our war against the Jewish state, we will kill you.

Today, Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, is reiterating Arafat’s offer.

Speaking Saturday at the Vatican after the Holy See decided to recognize “Palestine,” Abbas said that if US President-elect Donald Trump goes ahead with his plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, it will “fuel extremism in our region, as well as worldwide.”

Abbas’s spokesman was more explicit. Saturday night, Osama Qawasmeh, spokesman for Abbas’s Fatah PLO faction and member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, said that if the US moves its embassy to Israel’s capital city, “The gates of hell will be opened in the region and the world.”

Abbas and Qawasmeh also said that the PLO expects that members of the international community will make Trump see the light and abandon his plan.

French President Francois Hollande’s “peace conference” on Sunday was the international community’s way of fulfilling Abbas’s demand.

As multiple commentators have noted, the conference’s purpose wasn’t to promote the prospects for peace. It was to constrain Trump’s policy options for handling the Palestinian war against Israel.

By bringing together representatives of some 70 countries to insist that Israeli homeowners are the moral equivalent of Palestinian terrorists, Hollande and his comrades hoped to box Trump into their PLO-compliant policy.

Spelling out the demand Trump is required to accept, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc-Ayrault parroted the Palestinian threats.

Asked by the French media Sunday if moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem would provoke the Palestinians, Ayrault said, “Of course.”

He then demeaned Trump’s plan to move the embassy as nothing but the regular bluster of American politicians.

In his words, “I think he [Trump] would not be able to do it. It would have extremely serious consequences and it’s not the first time that it’s on the agenda of a US president, but none has let himself make that decision.”

Ayrault is correct about Trump’s predecessors.

To one degree or another, since the early 1970s, successive US administrations have joined the Europeans in selling Israel down the river to prevent Arafat’s minions from pointing their guns at the American people.

Like the Europeans, the Americans have upheld their side of this bargain even when the PLO failed to uphold its end. For instance, in 1973 Arafat ordered his terrorists to storm the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum and take US ambassador Cleo Noel, his deputy, George Curtis Moore, and Belgian diplomat Guy Eid hostage. Arafat then ordered his henchmen to murder the diplomats after then president Richard Nixon rejected his demand to release Robert F. Kennedy’s Palestinian murderer, Sirhan Sirhan, from prison.

Instead of responding to the execution of US diplomats by siding with Israel against the PLO, the US covered up and denied the PLO’s responsibility for the attack for the next 33 years.

The US is still covering up for the PLO’s murder of US embassy personnel in Gaza in 2003. At the same time, it is providing the PLO with nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in direct and indirect annual aid, including the training and provision of its security forces.

The Europeans for their part have egged the US along throughout the years. France has generally led European efforts to convince the Americans to side with Palestinian as well as Hezbollah terrorists in their war against Israel in the name of “peace.”

Sunday morning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the Paris conference as a “futile” relic of a period that is about to end.

Netanyahu said that the conference’s goal of boxing Israel into an untenable framework for dealing the Palestinians was nothing more than the “final palpitations of a yesterday’s world.”

“Tomorrow,” he intoned, “will look a lot different. And tomorrow is very close.”

Trump will take office on Friday. Since he was elected, he has given every reason to believe that Abbas and his deputies and their European and American enablers will have to either put up or shut up.

Speaking of the president-elect, Henry Kissinger said that Trump is the first man in recent memory who doesn’t owe anybody anything for his victory.

The only people he is answerable to are the voters who elected him.

Trump’s electoral victory owes to his success in tapping into the deep reservoir of popular disaffection with the elitist culture and policies that have governed post-Cold War West. He has used the mandate he received from American voters to revisit the basic assumptions that have driven US policies for the past generation.

His skepticism at NATO and the EU are examples of his refusal to simply accept the received wisdom of his predecessors. Just this weekend he told Germany’s Bild magazine that he continues to question the purpose of NATO, which is a drag on US taxpayers and doesn’t fight terrorism.

He similarly restated his ambivalence toward the EU and that its open border policy has been a “catastrophic failure,” and he expects more countries to follow Britain’s lead and exit the EU.

Trump’s position on the PLO and the Palestinian war on Israel is of a piece with his wider rejection of the common wisdom of Western elites. Just as he didn’t hesitate to say that the EU mainly serves as an instrument for Germany to dominate the European market, so he has made no mystery of his rejection of the moral equivalence between Israel and Palestinian terrorists which forms the basis of the twostate formula.

Not only won’t Trump join the Obama administration and the French in criminalizing Israeli homeowners, Trump is celebrating them. He has invited the leaders of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria – that is, the so-called “settlements” – to attend his inauguration.

And he appears dead serious about moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem.

Under these circumstances, Israel has the opportunity and the obligation to end the PLO’s ability to threaten the US, not to mention itself. It is Israel’s duty to ensure that the next time the PLO tries to exact a price in blood for America’s refusal to abide by the terms of Arafat’s blackmail, his terrorist group is finally destroyed.

Similarly, Israel is now obliged to take the lead and abandon the PLO-friendly two-state policy, which blames Israel for Palestinian terrorism, and adopt a strategy that works in its place.

Netanyahu has refused to consider any alternative until after Barack Obama is out of office.

Consultations must be scheduled for Saturday night.

Categories: Europe and Israel, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Paris Peace Conference, Trump and Israel
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Abbas threatens to cancel PA recognition of Israel… but the PA has never really recognized Israel

January 16, 2017

Abbas threatens to cancel  PA recognition of Israel… but the PA has never really recognized Israel, Palestinian Media Watch, Itamar Marcus, January 16, 2017

fatah-fb-mapPA and Fatah map: PA flag over all of Israel. Text: “The revolution continues”

Fatah Central Committee member: 

As North Vietnam took South Vietnam, a Palestinian state in West Bank will surely expand and take all of Israel
[Official PA TV, State of Politics, Dec. 26, 2016]
PA’s Mufti, Muhammad Hussein:
“Jerusalem and all of Palestine is Islamic land.”
[Official PA TV, Dec. 10, 2016]

 

Abbas’ advisor on Islamic Affairs, Mahmoud Al-Habbash:  

“The entire land of Palestine is [Islamic] Waqf ... It is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.” 
[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014]

 

On the occasion of yesterday’s peace conference with representatives from 72 countries in Paris, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas stated that if the US moves its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem it might lead the Palestinians to “cancel” their “recognition of Israel:”

“President Abbas said that he wrote to Trump and warned him of the consequences of the transfer of the embassy, and noted that this ‘will not only negate any legitimacy of the US to fill a role in settling the conflict, but will also annihilate the two-state solution.’ He added that the Palestinians will discuss several options for a response, after consultations are held with Arab states, and said: ‘Cancelling our recognition of Israel will be one of them.'”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 15, 2017]

However, the clear fact is that the Palestinian Authority and Fatah have never really recognized the State of Israel.

For 20 years, Palestinian Media Watch has been exposing that, despite peace negotiations, agreements, and declarations, the Palestinians have never recognized Israel’s right to exist – in any borders. In speeches, at events, and visually, the PA, Fatah, and their leaders have continued to present “Palestine” as including all of Israel and have expressed that the final goal is that all Israel’s land will be in one state: “Palestine.”

Expressing non-recognition in all maps<

One recent example is Fatah’s map above which was posted with the text: “The revolution continues.” It shows all of Israel and the PA areas together as one entity with the Palestinian flag symbolizing political sovereignty over Israel. [Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 29, 2016]

Expressing non-recognition: PA goal is elimination of Israel in stages

Palestinian leaders openly say among themselves that a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 lines is merely the first stage of replacing all of Israel with “Palestine.” Fatah Central Committee member Azzam Al-Ahmad recently told PA TV that he is not concerned that land he claims for his family is in the “1948” lands, i.e., in Israel, because he is “certain” that a Palestinian state in the West Bank will lead to “Palestine” erasing Israel – just like North Vietnam took South Vietnam: [Please see video. — DM]

“We agree to a state on territory that is 22%, and perhaps less, of the land of historical Palestine. By the way, I personally – all of our [family’s] lands, thousands of acres in the Jezreel Valley (i.e., Israel) – none are in the 1967 lands (i.e., West Bank), but rather in the 1948 [lands] (i.e., in Israel).  Despite this, I am certain that a Palestinian state on the borders of June 4, 1967 will return my historical rights to me in full. I am certain of it. Therefore, I am certain that we need to start. The historical examples of this are many. North Vietnam. There was a North and a South [Vietnam]. What is its name now? Vietnam! Isn’t it?”

[Official PA TV, State of Politics, Dec. 26, 2016]

Click to view

Another Fatah Central Committee member, Abbas Zaki, said the same thing to Al-Jazeera already years ago. The goal of PA policy including that of Abbas, he said, is to eliminate all of Israel in stages and it will be achieved by first bringing Israel to the 1967 lines, because then “Israel will come to an end.” He then added:  “If I say that I want to remove it from existence, this will be great, great, [but] it is hard. This is not a [stated] policy. You can’t say it to the world. You can say it to yourself.”  [Al-Jazeera TV, Sept. 23, 2011]

Expressing non-recognition through terminology

The PA leaders’ use of the euphemism “1948 lands” (see above)instead of saying “Israel,” is another glaring example of their non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist. At other times Israel is referred to as “occupied Palestine.” Palestinian Media Watch has documented hundreds of examples of the use of these terms.

Expressing non-recognition as Islamic law

In recent years, the PA and Fatah leaders have added an Islamic prohibition against recognition of Israel to their political refusal to recognize Israel, by which the PA is echoing Hamas ideology. PA and Fatah religious leaders are now teaching that it violates Islamic law to recognize Israel because all of Israel is said to be on “Islamic land” – “Waqf.” Allah demands Palestinians to liberate it and “not give up a single grain” of it.

In December 2016, the PA’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein reiterated that Islam prohibits recognition of Israel in any borders while speaking in front of the top PA leadership: Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida’is, and Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Abbas’ advisor on Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash. The Mufti said that “All of Palestine is Islamic land” and encouraged Palestinians to continue religious conflict:

mufti-1

“We will establish the Palestinian state despite the doubts of the doubters, because the Palestinian people has the solid will, the Jihadi and combative will. This people of Ribat (i.e., religious conflict/war over land claimed to be Islamic)… Allah willing, it will continue to carry out Ribat at the gates of the Al-Aqsa [Mosque] and at the gates of Jerusalem. The call of Monotheism, the call to prayer, will remain loud and heard in the Al-Aqsa Mosque plaza, Jerusalem, and all of Palestine, because all of Palestine is Islamic land.”

 [Speech in front of PA top officials, PA ceremony marking birthday
 of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, Official PA TV, Dec. 10, 2016]

Click to view

This Islamic prohibition to recognize Israel in any borders was stated explicitly by a close advisor to Mahmoud Abbas and the PA’s Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash:

“The entire land of Palestine is Waqf (an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law) and is blessed land… It is prohibited to sell, bestow ownership or facilitate the occupation of even a millimeter of it.”

[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Oct. 22, 2014
sabri-saidam-map

Expressing non-recognition through education

These messages that all of Israel is “Palestine” are a central part of the Palestinian Authority education as well. When the PA Ministry of Education recently launched its First Palestinian School Counseling Committee, it chose a logo displaying the PA map of “Palestine” that includes all of Israel, covered with the PA flag. One member of the committee was Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Sabri Saidam (seated third from the left).

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 22, 2016]

Palestinian non-recognition of Israel in any borders is one of the fundamental components of Palestinian Authority ideology that are repeated incessantly to the Palestinian population while PA leaders are careful to hide it from the international community. Abbas’ threat to “cancel recognition” is therefore meaningless for the Palestinian population, as it is well aware that “Palestine” in PA ideology already encompasses all of Israel.

A poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Studies found that for Palestinians a peace treaty with Israel, therefore, would not mean the end of the conflict. Rather, Palestinians would then want to continue working “toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine.” The poll showed that Palestinians understand that this is the PA leaders’ policy as well:

“A clear majority (60% overall, including 55% in the West Bank and 68% in Gaza) say that the five-year goal ‘should be to work toward reclaiming all of historic Palestine, from the river to the sea.’ …

This pattern is confirmed by other questions in the survey. For example, just one-third said that a two-state solution ‘should be the end of the conflict.’ Nearly two-thirds said ‘resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.’ And only a third said that ‘it might be necessary to give up some of our claims so that our people and our children can have a better life.’

Similarly, only a third said that a two-state solution would be their leadership’s final goal. Instead, almost two-thirds said it would be ‘part of a “program of stages,” to liberate all of historic Palestine later.’ This remarkable finding helps explain how a plurality or more of Palestinians can support President Mahmoud Abbas and reject a two-state solution at the same time.”

 [The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 25, 2014]

The international community’s failure to realize that the Palestinian Authority does not recognize Israel and has taught its people and especially its children to reject Israel in all borders, is one of the great failures of international diplomacy, and remains one of the fundamental impediments to peace.

The following is Abbas’ statement about the Palestinian cancellation of their “recognition” of Israel if the US moves its embassy to Jerusalem:

Headline: “The [PA] president [Abbas] calls on participants in the Paris Conference to take tangible steps to implement the international decisions – transferring the American embassy will hinder the peace process, and canceling our recognition of Israel will be one of our options”

“[PA] President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday [Jan. 14, 2017] inaugurated the Palestinian embassy at the Vatican. He met with Pope Francis, and again warned against the plan of US President-elect Donald Trump to transfer the American embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem. During the inauguration of the embassy… the president again emphasized his opposition to the possibility that the American embassy will be transferred to Jerusalem, and said: ‘The Palestinians are waiting to see what will happen. We hope that this is not true, because it will thwart the peace process.’

President Abbas emphasized that he ‘extends his hand to President-elect Trump for cooperation in order to reach peace on the basis of international law.’ He added that ‘any attempt to give legal validity to the illegal annexation of Jerusalem by Israel will eliminate the prospects of the political process, dispel the hopes of a solution based on two states, and encourage the extremism in our region and in the world.’ …

In an interview that was published yesterday in the French paper Le Figaro, President Abbas said that he wrote to Trump and warned him of the consequences of the transfer of the embassy, and noted that this ‘will not only negate any legitimacy of the US to fill a role in settling the conflict, but will also annihilate the two-state solution.’

He added that the Palestinians will discuss several options for a response, after consultations are held with Arab states, and said: ‘Cancelling our recognition of Israel will be one of them, but we hope that we will not reach that, and that instead we will be able to work with the next American administration.'”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 15, 2017; official PA TV News, Jan. 14, 2017

Categories: Fatah, Fatah maps of Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Recognition of Israel
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Hamas headquarters uncovered north of Jerusalem

January 16, 2017

Hamas headquarters uncovered north of Jerusalem, Israel National News,Uzi Baruch, January 16, 2017

hamasguysIllustration Flash90

Thirteen Hamas terrorists, including a member of the Palestinian Authority’s Legislative Council, were arrested overnight in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet internal security agency.

The operation comes on the heels of the discovery of a regional headquarters of the Hamas terror group in the Ramallah district, north of Jerusalem.

The base is believed to have served as the center of operations for dozens of Hamas terrorists in Samaria, and may be part of a broader effort by Hamas to expand its influence in the Ramallah area. Payments to jailed terrorists and their families, outreach efforts to local Palestinian Authority residents, public demonstrations, and the operation of a Hamas student group were all managed from the headquarters.

During the raid of the facility overnight, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet agents confiscated cash, vehicles, and propaganda material used by Hamas for recruitment purposes.

“The discovery of this [terror] infrastructure reveals Hamas’ continuing strategic intentions to operate and establish bases in the area, as part of an effort to weaken the [Palestinian] Authority; all while attempting to commit serious acts of terror,” a Shin Bet spokesperson said.

“The Shin Bet security agency and the IDF will continue to operate with determination to disrupt these [terror] infrastructures in advance [of possible attacks].”

Categories: Hamas, IDF, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists, Shin Bet
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Palestinian journalists frustrated with inability to cover PA corruption

January 13, 2017

Palestinian journalists frustrated with inability to cover PA corruption, al-Monitor, Shlomi Eldar, January 12, 2017

"PalestinianPalestinian journalists take part in a protest in front of the Reuters office, Gaza City, Gaza, Apr. 22, 2008. (photo by REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah)

Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are closely following the unfolding case of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly receiving favors or gifts. Their interest is not prompted only by glee at the possible downfall of the Israeli leader they despise, but also by appreciation and envy of Israeli democracy and press freedom that enable the questioning of the prime minister under caution and the investigative reporting against him by the media.

No journalists in Gaza — no matter how senior — would even think of criticizing the leaders of Hamas, and in the Palestinian Authority (PA), criticism of any kind against President Mahmoud Abbas, or exposure of corruption in the PA, could result in the journalist’s arrest.

“We all known there’s terrible corruption in the PA,” a senior veteran journalist from Ramallah, the seat of the PA in the West Bank, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “We know hundreds of stories about senior PA officials and about Abbas’ sons, but we can’t publish them or even talk openly about them.”

According to various reports, the PA has for years been plagued by corruption. The governmental structure put in place by the late Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat did not include control and supervision mechanisms. Every Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza knows full well that those closest to the seat of power often enjoy a lifestyle incompatible with the salary of a PA official.

“We saw PLO activists who arrived [in the West Bank and Gaza] from Libya and Tunisia [in the 1990s] with only the clothes on their backs, and a few months after the PA was established they were already driving around in Mercedes cars, wearing Italian suits and building ostentatious villas,” the journalist claimed. “To this day they are all rich, taken care of and no one can say a word or even ask where such wealth came from.”

European Union states that donate hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the PA have tried to establish supervisory mechanisms over the funds they provide, but according to Palestinian journalists who spoke with Al-Monitor, the top PA levels were more devious than all the oversight mechanisms, and they found loopholes through which to funnel some of the money into their own pockets.

The criticism discussed behind closed doors does not relate only to past malfeasance. A senior journalist who works for an Arabic language media outlet notes in a conversation with Al-Monitor that the sons of the Palestinian president are also mentioned among those making a fortune out of their family connection to Abbas.

Tareq Abbas, for example, is the director of a company that in the past employed Mohammed Rashid, a close confidant of Arafat and his moneyman, who was subsequently convicted by a Ramallah court of stealing millions of dollars from a Palestinian investment fund and from the PLO coffers, and transferring the money to bank accounts in various places around the world. Since the “cleaning of the stables” after Arafat’s death in 2004, Abbas’s son Tareq has been serving as a director in the Palestinian investment fund that manages hundreds of millions of dollars, so that his father has almost complete control over the fund without anyone in the PA being allowed to express opposition or question its management. In 2012, Foreign Policy ran a story about the fortunes of Abbas’ sons in which the investigative reporters wondered whether there was any connection between the wealth they were accumulating and their family connection.

“We know the answer,” a Palestinian journalist told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “Everyone knows that Tareq and Yasser Abbas immediately win every bid they put in, whether directly or through straw men.”

The journalist said that reporters have learned not to ask “unnecessary” questions, lest they lose their jobs, at best, or are sent to jail in a worst-case scenario. The media learned the limits of what was permissible and what was not in the affair of Mahmad Hadifa, an independent journalist who published a series of investigative reports about the goings on in the Palestinian Ministry of Economy in Ramallah. Hadifa was arrested by Palestinian security forces after the stories ran and was threatened, even though no one claimed his reports were false. On the contrary, he touched on issues troubling Palestinians in the West Bank and exposed irregularities in the most important economic office in the PA.

“Sometimes you can see criticism against Abbas’ sons or senior PA officials on social media,” another journalist told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “But never in a way that might disclose the identity of the writer. Usually the critics are cautious and they ask rhetorical questions, but everyone knows what they mean.”

Only few such investigative reports were published — for instance investigative stories about corruption in the PA were published by Reuters and The Associated Press. The Palestinian researchers and reporters who helped to compile these stories were not named. In 2009, Reuters reported that firms run by Abbas’ sons won US government aid contracts to repair roads in the Palestinian territories, and AP published leaked documents in 2015 allegedly exposing corruption by senior PA officials.

None of the people mentioned in the reporting were questioned or lost their jobs; coverage of the reported affairs in the Palestinian media was limited on orders from high up.

Many Palestinians who have been exposed to Israeli reporting about the investigations into Netanyahu’s alleged wrongdoing — which play prominently in the Palestinian media — are asking whether receiving gifts such as cigars and champagne constitute sufficient cause for his indictment, conviction and resignation. Some of the journalists with whom I spoke claim that receiving gifts is standard practice in the PA and is not considered a criminal offense.

“If we were able to talk about each and every present, and this were to result in an investigation and conviction,” said a senior journalist in the PA on condition of anonymity, “we wouldn’t have a functioning Palestinian Authority because everyone would already be in jail.”

 

Categories: Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian corruption, Palestinian economy, Palestinian journalists
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Palestinians: Glorifying Mass Murderers

January 10, 2017

Palestinians: Glorifying Mass Murderers, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, January 10, 2017

For anyone who treasures freedom – including many Arabs and Muslims who do not want to live under terrorist Islamic dictatorships but are strong-armed from speaking out – the United Nations is now poisonous place. It has been taken over by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — 56 Islamic countries plus Palestine. It is now the seat of the universal caliphate. In this, it is assisted by dictators, despots and the many dhimmi-European leaders who together command a permanent voting majority and have been lately been busy rewriting historical facts. Nothing good can come from it. Freedom-loving countries should run.

The murderous legacy and personality of Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas mass murderer who masterminded a wave of suicide bombings, are being glorified not only by his Hamas supporters, but also by the “moderate” Western-funded Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

Ayyash won his reputation on the murdering and maiming of hundreds of Israelis, most of them innocent civilians. Had he fought for peace and coexistence, Ayyash would have been condemned as a “traitor” and gone down in history as a “defeatist” and “surrenderist.”

“The mosque that produced the mujahed [warrior] Ayyash is continuing to produce heroes.” – Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is in these mosques that Ayyash was taught that Islam permits people like him to build bombs and dispatch suicide bombers to blow up buses. It is also in these mosques where he was taught that devout Muslims are best engaged in spilling Jewish blood.

Children and youths who attend prayers at these mosques are being fed the same hate-speech rhetoric that their hero Ayyash was exposed to in his childhood. Hence it is no surprise that the mosques in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to this day to churn out new terrorists, many of whom aspire to become like Ayyash – mass murderers.

Thus, despite Fatah’s double-talk about a two-state solution and “peace” with Israel, mass murderers still take top billing in its hall of fame. Fatah is also making it known that its former leader, Yasser Arafat, approved of such terrorism against Israel.

The voices of the Palestinians who reject this education for wholesale slaughter are being marginalized by the European leaders doing business with the still-wealthy members of the Arab elite who fund these imams and these mosques.

These European leaders wrongly image that if they get rid of Israel, it will be only Israel. They fail see that Israel is just the first course. They imagine that if they accede to Muslims’ wishes, they will be safe. What they fail to see, as in France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Britain, is that they will be next.

Palestinian youths are being urged to follow in the footsteps of Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas mass murderer who masterminded a wave of suicide bombings that killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis. Ayyash’s expertise in manufacturing explosive devices earned him the nickname “The Engineer” and turned him into a hero in the eyes of many Palestinians. The bomb-maker was killed by Israeli security forces on January 5, 1996, thereby ending one of the bloodiest chapters of Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

Two decades later, this arch-terrorist is still being revered as a hero and martyr. His murderous legacy and personality are being glorified not only by his Hamas supporters, but also by the “moderate” Western-funded Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

A few years ago, the PA decided to honor Ayyash by naming a street in Ramallah after him. The street sign was posted in Ramallah, the headquarters of the PA where Abbas lives and works, and reads:

“Yahya Ayyash, 1966-1996, born in Nablus, studied electrical engineering in Bir Zeit University. Was a member of the (Hamas military wing) Iz ad-Din al-Qassam, and was linked by Israel to a number of bombings. He was assassinated by Israel in his Beit Lahia (Gaza Strip) home on January 5, 1996.”

This week, Palestinians took to social media to glorify the arch-terrorist further, depicting him as a role model and urging youths to follow in his footsteps.

On Twitter, for instance, they launched a hashtag entitled, “Be Like Ayyash.” The campaign encourages Palestinian youths to admire the bomb-maker and endorse his “jihad” (holy war) against Israel. Activists posted video clips, songs, poems and portraits praising and lionizing Ayyash and his terrorism. The campaign, according to the sponsors, is also designed to acquaint Palestinians with the “humane and leadership qualities” of Ayyash and remind them of his “heroic actions.”

Unsurprisingly, the social media campaign has attracted the attention of thousands of Palestinians and Arabs, who heaped praise on the Hamas bomb-maker-turned-icon. Ayyash won his reputation on the murdering and maiming of hundreds of Israelis, most of them innocent civilians. Had he fought for peace and coexistence, Ayyash would have been condemned as a “traitor” and gone down in history as a “defeatist” and “surrenderist.”

This Palestinian “engineer” is not being glorified because he used his expertise to help improve the lives of Palestinians. He is being lauded because he used the education he received to build bombs and dispatch suicide bombers to kill Israelis.

One activist hailed Ayyash as “The Master of Men and the Moon of Palestine.” He added: “We are proud of you, Hawk of Iz ad-Din al-Qassam!”

Another activist posted: “Oh history take note – the engineer of Palestine used to divert the path of Zionist buses towards hell!” (a reference to the suicide bombings that targeted Israeli buses).

Here is what another Palestinian had to say about the mass-murderer: “Yahya Ayyash is an idea, and ideas do not die. Although the resistance in the Gaza Strip has developed its weapons, the bombing of a bus has a special flavor!”

2200An image recently posted to Twitter glorifying Yahya Ayyash, a Hamas mass murderer who masterminded a wave of suicide bombings that killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis. The image shows Ayyash’s face superimposed over an Israeli bus that was blown up by a Palestinian suicide bomber in the 1990’s.

Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi, Chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, joined the chorus of terror glorifiers by offering his own post commemorating the anniversary of the death of Ayyash. “Yahya Ayyash did not die,” wrote the leading Islamic scholar, considered the spiritual father of Muslim Brotherhood. “He is alive in the conscience of all Palestine. The mosque that produced the mujahed (warrior) Ayyash is continuing to produce heroes.”

Sheikh al-Qaradawi is right in two important ways. The first of these is that Ayyash was indeed “produced” by a mosque. Those close to Ayyash describe him as a devout Muslim who used to spend much of his time in mosques, where he was undoubtedly exposed to anti-Semitic hate-speech and indoctrination at the hands of preachers and imams.

It is in these mosques that Ayyash was taught that Islam permits people like him to build bombs and dispatch suicide bombers to blow up buses. It is also in these mosques where he was taught that devout Muslims are best engaged in spilling Jewish blood.

Al-Qaradawi is also right when he says that the mosques are continuing to produce “heroes.” This is true because incitement and anti-Semitism remains a main theme of the Friday prayer sermons. Children and youths who attend prayers at these mosques are being fed the same hate-speech rhetoric that their hero Ayyash was exposed to in his childhood. Hence it is no surprise that the mosques in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to this day to churn out new terrorists, many of whom aspire to become like Ayyash – mass murderers.

“Ayyash was only 29 years old, but he became a legend that instilled fear in the hearts of the Zionists,” remarked another social media activist. “He was transformed into an exemplary engineer inspiring new generations.”

Hamas leaders, for their part, chose to celebrate the anniversary of the death of their terrorist by voicing hope that Palestinian youths would look at him as their role model and follow in his footsteps. “The students of Yahya Ayyash are the hope of the Palestinians,” said Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran. He said that Ayyash continues to serve as an inspiration for youths who wish to join the jihad against Israel.

That Ayyash was a Hamas member has not prevented the rival Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas from joining the campaign of glorification.

True, Hamas and Fatah are rivals and they despise each other. But when it comes to murdering Israelis, they wholeheartedly agree. In truth, Fatah would have preferred if Ayyash had been one of its own. Had that been so Fatah would have been able to boast (instead of Hamas) of the “heroic” attacks engineered by the beloved terrorist.

Still, in the eyes of Fatah, this Hamas arch-terrorist is a hero because he killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis. On one of its Facebook pages, Fatah had these words to say about Ayyash: “The revolutionaries never die; Fatah pledges to remain committed to the martyrs and the path of Yasser Arafat.”

Thus, despite Fatah’s double-talk about a two-state solution and “peace” with Israel, mass murderers still take top billing in its hall of fame. Fatah is also making it known that its former leader, Yasser Arafat, approved of such terrorism against Israel. This Fatah stance should not come as a surprise to those who have been following its leaders’ and activists’ statements and actions. The glorification of terrorists has always been an integral part of Fatah ideology. Most recently, Fatah celebrated its 52nd anniversary in a series of Facebook posts glorifying Palestinian terrorists.

Some would argue that the absence of education for peace with Israel on the Palestinian side is largely responsible for the failure of the peace process. However, this assessment falls short of the full truth. That truth is that the same Palestinian children who are not educated toward peace with Israel are educated toward killing Israeli civilians, as many as possible. The continued glorification of terrorists and the encouragement of youths to join the jihad against Israel and Jews, as well as the celebrations marking the death of Ayyash, demonstrate this truth. Where, the international community might ask, are the voices of the Palestinians who reject this education for wholesale slaughter?

Their voices are being marginalized by many European leaders comfortably doing business with the still-wealthy members of the Arab and Muslim elite who fund those imams and mosques. These European leaders wrongly image that if they get rid of Israel, it will be only Israel. They fail see that Israel is just the first course. They imagine that if they accede to Muslims’ wishes, they will be safe. What they fail to see, as in France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and Britain, is that they will be next, and that what they have been seeing is just the start. That is how the Muslims in a few hundred years took over Persia, Turkey, southern Spain, all of North Africa, and most of Eastern Europe.

For anyone who treasures freedom – including many Arabs and Muslims who do not want to live under terrorist Islamic dictatorships but are strong-armed from speaking out – the United Nations is now poisonous place. It has been taken over by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — 56 Islamic countries plus Palestine. It is now the seat of the universal caliphate. In this, it is assisted by dictators, despots and the many dhimmi-European leaders who together command a permanent voting majority and have been lately been busy rewriting historical facts. Nothing good can come from it. Freedom-loving countries should run.

Categories: Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Israel and Europe, OIC, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian terrorists, UN and Israel, UN Security Council, United Nations and Islamists
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Netanyahu, Congress, AIPAC and the PLO

January 10, 2017

Netanyahu, Congress, AIPAC and the PLO, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, January 10, 2017

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Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The whitewashing of the PLO must end.

It is not in the least surprising that the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority did not condemn the terrorist attack on Sunday. It is not surprising because the PLO-controlled PA encouraged the attack.

As Khaled Abu Toameh wrote for the Gatestone Institute, in the aftermath of last month’s US-enabled passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which criminalizes Israel, the PA went on the warpath.

Among other things, Muhammad Abu Shtayyeh, who serves as a close adviser to PLO chief and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas called for an intensification of terrorist attacks against Israelis. Shtayyeh said that now is the time to “bolster the popular resistance” against Israel.

As Abu Toameh noted, “‘Popular resistance’ is code for throwing stones and petrol bombs and carrying out stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.”

Sunday’s terrorist murderer probably was inspired by Islamic State, and its adherents’ recent truck ramming murder sprees in Nice and Berlin, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

But Sunday’s 28-year-old cold blooded killer hailed from Jerusalem, not Nice.

His brain was washed since he was five years old by the PLO-controlled PA’s steady cycle of jihadist incitement.

From the time he was in preschool, the killer was indoctrinated to aspire to commit the mass murder of Jews he carried out on Sunday.

For 23 years, Israel and the US have empowered the PLO.

During this period, the terrorist group never took any concrete steps to promote peace. At no point in the past generation has a PLO leader ever told the Palestinians or supporters abroad that the time has come to bury the hatchet and accept Israel.

Instead, for 23 years, the PLO has openly supported Israel’s annihilation. Often that support has been stated in code words like “popular resistance” which everyone understands means murder.

To make it easy for Americans and Israelis to continue funding, arming, training and of course, recognizing the PLO as a “moderate” organization despite its continued sponsorship of terrorism, PLO members are always happy to talk about a “two-state solution” with Westerners that wish to be lied to.

But they do not hesitate to threaten anyone who rejects their lies about Jews and Israel. For instance, Abbas reacted to US President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to abide by the US law requiring the State Department to move the US embassy to Jerusalem by threatening him.

Trump’s plan will have “serious implications” for the US, Abbas told a group of visiting Israeli leftists.

PLO Executive Committee chairman Saeb Erekat said that if Trump moves the US embassy to Israel’s capital, the PLO will lobby Arab states to expel the US ambassadors from their capitals.

Jebl Mukaber, the Jerusalem neighborhood where Sunday’s terrorist lived, used to be just an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. It wasn’t particularly friendly.

But it also wasn’t particularly hostile.

But then for about five minutes in 1993, the PLO pretended it wasn’t a terrorist group. To the delight of the US, Israel responded by giving it operational bases in Gaza, Judea and Samaria. The PLO then went about indoctrinating residents of the areas under its control as well as throughout Israel that they must reject all forms of coexistence with Israel and work toward its destruction.

These acts of war on the ground have always been complemented by PLO efforts to destroy Israel in the court of world opinion through its unrelenting and ever escalating worldwide political war against the Jewish state.

In keeping with this state of affairs, following 2334’s passage, at the same time its members called for intensifying terrorist attacks against Israel, the PLO Executive Committee decided to escalate its international economic boycott campaign against Israel and ratchet up its campaign to convince the International Criminal Court to convict Israelis of imaginary war crimes.

Like Sunday’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem, it ought to go without saying that these actions are all acts of war against Israel.

The reason it is necessary to state what ought to be the self-evident fact that the PLO is a terrorist organization engaged in a total war against Israel and the Jewish People is because the people that are supposed to act on this reality insist on denying it. The Netanyahu government, the US Congress and US Jewish organizations led by AIPAC still refuse admit the truth about the PLO and draw the necessary conclusions.

Those necessary conclusions are similarly self-evident.

Israel and the US should cut all ties to the PLO.

The PLO should be re-designated as the terrorist group it never stopped being and treated accordingly.

Last week, the US House of Representatives passed non-binding Resolution 11, which condemned resolution 2334. Resolution 11 was shepherded through the House by AIPAC, with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s support.

The House resolution, which is set to be followed by a nearly identical Senate resolution in the coming days, is based on the proposition that 2334 is bad not because, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center rightly said, it was the worst antisemitic act of 2016. Rather, the congressional resolution rejects 2334 because it harms the chance of Israel and the PLO reaching a negotiated peace that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Resolution 11 is marginally helpful because it rejects economic and political warfare against Israel. But substantively, in regard to the PLO and its legitimacy, the greatest difference between Resolution 11 and 2334 is that while 2334 embraces the PLO’s anti-Jewish rejection of all Jewish ties to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Resolution 11 recognizes Israel’s right to the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter.

Beyond Jerusalem’s Old City, Congress’s resolution accepts the pro-PLO position that it is a good idea to work toward the forcible expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria to make room for a Jew-free Palestinian state led by PLO terrorists.

To credit its position, the House resolution states that 2334’s refusal to distinguish between Jerusalem’s Old City and Judea and Samaria means it equates “these sites with outposts in the West Bank that the Israeli government has deemed illegal.”

The problem with this wording is that it ignores the fact that the Knesset is about to pass a law that would effectively cancel that delineation. Similarly, it ignores that the delineation of Israeli communities built since 2000 in Judea and Samaria as illegal was done by a radical Justice Ministry attorney who now heads the post-Zionist New Israel Fund.

In other words, Congress’s resolution reflects the view of the far-left fringes of the Israeli political spectrum.

Supported by Netanyahu, AIPAC shepherded this resolution through the House, despite harsh opposition from the House Freedom Caucus whose members wish to end US support for the PLO and for a PLO state.

Although AIPAC condemned the Obama administration’s refusal to veto 2334, it continues to fervently support the PLO and Palestinian statehood. Indeed, just days after 2334 passed, AIPAC officials and missions were meeting with Erekat and other PLO operatives in Ramallah, as if there is anything pro-Israel about meeting with people who just got the Security Council to resolve that Israel is a criminal state.

AIPAC’s continued support for the PLO no doubt stems in part from its desire to keep the Democratic Party inside the pro-Israel tent. Unfortunately, that ship seems to have sailed.

Nearly 40% of House Democrats including minority leader Nancy Pelosi and assistant leader Jim Clyburn voted against the PLO state supporting resolution.

Rep. Keith Ellison, who is the front-runner to be elected Democratic National Committee chairman later this month, also voted no. Two thirds of the 95 Democrats supported by J Street opposed the resolution.

Most of the Democrats that supported Resolution 11 may well have supported it even if it had left out the goal of giving the PLO a state. It cannot be credibly argued that Reps. Elliot Engel and Steny Hoyer would have opposed Resolution 11 if it had simply stated that 2334 was antisemitic.

Certainly it is hard to argue they would have opposed it if the vote was delayed until January 21. Indeed, it is hard to understand why it was necessary to pass the resolution while President Barack Obama – who partnered with the PLO to pass 2334 – is still in office.

Resolution 2334’s passage must be viewed as an inflection point. It is no longer possible to credibly argue that the PLO is remotely interested in peace with Israel. Sunday’s murderous terrorist attack Jerusalem was further testament of this truth.

The time has come for Israelis and Israel’s supporters in the US to demand that our leaders – from Prime Minister Netanyahu to AIPAC to members of Congress – finally recognize and act of this truth. The whitewashing of the PLO must end.

Categories: Abbas, AIPAC, Israel, Israel and Middle East, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, Netanyahu, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian state, Palestinian terrorists, Two state solution, U.S. Congress, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
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The PLO’s Zero-Sum Game

January 3, 2017

The PLO’s Zero-Sum Game, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, January 3, 2017

(Please see also, Fatah Honors Islamist Terrorists For 52nd Anniversary. – DM)

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Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The time has come for the government to move ahead boldly. In their post-Obama, post-2334 state, the Israeli Left and its American Jewish supporters are in no position to stop the government from doing what needs to be done. But, if the government fails to act now, when the Democrats return in two or four years, the opportunity now upon us may be lost forever as the PLO comes back to win its zerosum game against Israel.

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Since its inception in the late 1970s, the Israeli peace movement has been based on one thing: hope.

Members of the peace movement hoped the PLO’s war with Israel could be resolved through compromise. Proponents of peace with the PLO hoped that Yasser Arafat and his terrorist minions weren’t truly committed to Israel’s destruction.

The two-state formula was based on the hope that Israel could reach an accommodation with the PLO. To wit, in exchange for parts of Judea and Samaria and Gaza (no one was talking about Jerusalem), Israeli peaceniks, who over time came to encompass all factions of the Left in Israel, hoped the PLO would bury the hatchet, build a state, or federate with Jordan, and that would be that.

In 1992, the peace camp took over the government. Under the leadership of then prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and then foreign minister Shimon Peres, hope became the basis for Israel’s national security strategy. That strategy was followed by every Israeli government since. The basic idea was clear enough. In exchange for land and guns and legitimacy, Arafat and his goons would be domesticated.

The peace camp’s hope was never based on evidence. Indeed, it flew in the face of the PLO’s track record. By the time the Israeli peaceniks began negotiating with Arafat and his deputies in the late 1980s, the PLO had already controlled two autonomous areas. In both Jordan and Lebanon, Arafat and his terrorists transformed peaceful areas into bases for global terrorism and launching points for massacres of Israelis and of victims from Africa to Europe to the Americas.

The secret of the PLO’s success was that it didn’t simply kill people. It combined murder with political warfare. The PLO’s political war had two goals. First, it aimed to make killing Jews politically acceptable a mere generation after the Holocaust.

Second, the PLO devoted great resources to wooing the Israeli and Western Left. It sought to convince a sufficient core of leftists that the PLO wasn’t really committed to its goal of eradicating Israel. It actually was a peace movement in terrorist disguise.

Arafat and his deputies whispered in the ears of their gullible Israeli “partners” that they weren’t an implacable foe. They were partners for peace just waiting to be convinced that they could make a deal.

The success of both political warfare strategies has been on prominent display of late. On December 23, the ambassadors of state members of the UN Security Council broke out in spontaneous applause after they unanimously passed Resolution 2334, which declares Israel an outlaw state populated by criminals and bereft of all rights to its capital and its historic heartland.

A week later, the PLO’s largest terrorist faction Fatah celebrated its founding day. The largest celebration this year reportedly took place in Bethlehem.

Fatah was actually founded in 1958. But Arafat chose December 31, 1964 as its founding day because that was the day his terrorists carried out their first terrorist attack against Israel.

In Bethlehem Saturday, thousands of Palestinian youths – starting at the age of four or five – marked the day with a march through town.

This was no ticker tape parade.

In classic PLO fashion, the young people – including the preschoolers – were clad in military uniforms and had their faces covered with sheets. They marched through the streets behind banners sporting the images of Fatah terrorists like mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi and pledged to complete their heroes’ mission.

The message of the spectacle was straightforward enough. Fatah remains utterly committed to eradicating Israel through terrorism and war.

Covering the march for the Israeli media was Channel 2’s far-left correspondent Ohad Hemo. In a manner comprehensible only to true believers, Hemo stared at the march and saw a reason for restored hope for peace.

Speaking to masked grand masters, without a tinge of embarrassment, Hemo asked if they supported the two-state solution.

Lo and behold, as they marched behind banners of Mughrabi, who led the PLO terrorist cell that massacred 38 Israelis including 13 children in 1978, Hemo’s minders told him that indeed, they support a two-state solution!

Hemo was exultant.

Even with its chokehold on the media and its control of the judicial system and state prosecution, the Israeli Left would have never been successful in maintaining this murderous joke without outside help.

And that’s where the American Jewish establishment came in.

For more than 20 years, led by AIPAC, the American Jewish establishment has insisted that the two-state solution is the only option. That is, empty faith in a terrorist organization fully committed to Israel’s destruction is the only acceptable policy for Republicans and Democrats alike to follow in respect to Israel.

For 23 years, despite the ever increasing dubiousness of Republican leaders and a few Democratic lawmakers, the consensus view was maintained.

The Jewish community’s slavish devotion to the PLO stemmed from two sources. First, by insisting that the PLO is a credible force, the American Jewish community has been able to keep peace in its ranks, which are populated overwhelmingly by leftists.

Second, by promoting a policy at odds with reality, communal leaders have been able to pretend that there is no qualitative distinction between Democratic and Republican support for Israel. This claim, which has become downright implausible during President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, is vital for enabling American Jews to pretend that Israel is a voting issue for them and that they aren’t simply motivated by their leftist world views.

It would appear that the jig is up on this position.

Obama’s lame-duck war against Israel and the rise of anti-Jewish forces in the Democratic Party led by Rep. Keith Ellison make it practically impossible to continue to claim that the Democratic Party is a home for pro-Israel forces in America.

On the other hand, President-elect Donald Trump’s full-throated support for Israel and promotion of advisers who openly oppose a PLO state has opened the door for Republican lawmakers to abandon their half-hearted support for the PLO. Beginning this month, they may very well begin ending US recognition of the PLO and cut off taxpayer funds to its terrorism-cultivating autonomy in Judea and Samaria.

In this state of affairs, American Jewish groups will either support Trump and the Republicans or lose their ability to influence events. In either case, for at least the next two years, they have lost their capacity to support the Israeli Left in a significant way.

This is important for Israel to understand because the clock is ticking. Obama’s onslaught has made clear that the Democratic Party no longer supports Israel. Like the PLO, Obama and his advisers view the PLO’s conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game and they have cast their lots with the terrorists against the Jewish state.

It is to be expected that under the leadership of former president Obama and Ellison the Democrats will expand the openness of their hostility to Israel.

Under these circumstance, Israel has but two years – until the mid-term congressional elections when the Democrats may be empowered in Congress – to decide what it wants to do with Judea and Samaria.

Last week the government signaled that its first step will be to apply Israeli law to Ma’ale Adumim. A bill to this effect is expected to be brought before the government shortly after Obama leaves office.

While a good first move, our leaders must recognize that it needs to be quickly followed up by additional administrative changes. The goal of those additional steps is to dismantle the military government which administers Area C – 60% of Judea and Samaria – by 2019 and transfer full administrative responsibility for the area, which includes Israel’s border with Jordan and all the Israeli communities of Judea and Samaria, to the government.

The time has come for the government to move ahead boldly. In their post-Obama, post-2334 state, the Israeli Left and its American Jewish supporters are in no position to stop the government from doing what needs to be done. But, if the government fails to act now, when the Democrats return in two or four years, the opportunity now upon us may be lost forever as the PLO comes back to win its zerosum game against Israel.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Israel - Jewish state, Israeli left, Israeli politics, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Palestinian Authority, Trump and Israel, U.S. Congress
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Fatah Honors Islamist Terrorists For 52nd Anniversary

January 3, 2017

Fatah Honors Islamist Terrorists For 52nd Anniversary, Clarion Project

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The ruling party in the Palestinian Authority celebrated its 52nd anniversary with Facebook posts glorifying bloodthirsty terrorists.

Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, celebrated its 52nd anniversary on Saturday. They used the occasion to heap praise on some of the most vicious Islamist terrorists in Israeli history, despite being ostensibly a secular organization.

Fatah praised Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood branch and jihadist terrorist organization Hamas, featuring his picture among those on a banner of terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians. Praise was also heaped on the founder of Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shaqaqi, along with several other secular terrorists.

“Fatah embraces its people and praises the Martyrs,” the organization posted on Facebook, as translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

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“To be a real Palestinian, you must be a self-sacrificing fighter (Fida’i), know much and reveal little, search for the security in the heart of the danger, get used to having no time to cry over endings but rather to always have new beginnings.

Long life to you and long live the anniversary of the Launch [of Fatah] (Intilaqa), and may it be a good year.

A people whose leaders are Martyrs will undoubtedly triumph with Allah’s help…”

The inclusion of Sheikh Yassin, who was killed in by an Israeli missile in 2004, comes as Fatah is attempting to reconcile with its longstanding foe Hamas, which currently controls the Gaza strip.

Russia has reportedly volunteered to broker a reconciliation between the divided factions.

“The Russians will host a meeting of Fatah, Hamas and other Palestinian officials in Moscow in the middle of January to discuss reconciliation,” PLO Executive Committee member Wasel Abu Yousef told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Categories: Fatah, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorists
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Egyptian Daily Close To Egyptian Intelligence Reveals Minutes Of Secret Palestinian Authority Meeting With John Kerry, Susan Rice; U.S.-Palestinian Coordination On UNSC 2334; Rice Says Trump Administration’s Policy Will Be ‘Dangerous’

December 30, 2016

Egyptian Daily Close To Egyptian Intelligence Reveals Minutes Of Secret Palestinian Authority Meeting With John Kerry, Susan Rice; U.S.-Palestinian Coordination On UNSC 2334; Rice Says Trump Administration’s Policy Will Be ‘Dangerous’, MEMRI, December 29, 2016

(This must be part of the deplorable Russian hacking scheme. Obama wouldn’t lie, would he?)

In mid-December 2016, a Palestinian Authority (PA) delegation met in Washington with officials from the outgoing Obama administration for secret talks. On December 27, the Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabi’, which is close to Egyptian intelligence services, published an exposé of the minutes of the secret talks. According to the report, by Ahmed Gomaa, the Palestinian delegation included PLO Executive Committee secretary and negotiating team leader Saeb Erekat; Palestinian general intelligence chief Majid Faraj; Husam Zomlot, strategic affairs advisor to Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud ‘Abbas; Palestinian Foreign Ministry official Dr. Majed Bamya; Palestinian negotiations department official Azem Bishara; Palestinian intelligence international relations department chief Nasser ‘Adwa; and head of the PLO delegation to Washington Ma’an Erekat.

The report gave the details of the Palestinian delegation’s schedule during the visit, noting that “the Palestinian side began its meetings on December 12, when Saeb Erekat and Majid Faraj met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. The next day, the two met with National Security Advisor Susan Rice. The entire delegation met with an American team that included four representatives of the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security, for a six-hour political-strategic meeting. Majid Faraj concluded his visit with a lengthy meeting with the CIA chief.”

According to the report, the minutes of the “top secret” meeting of Kerry, Rice, Erekat, and Faraj reveals U.S.-Palestinian coordination leading up to the UN Security Council vote on Resolution 2334 regarding Israel’s settlements, which was adopted December 23. It states that the sides “agreed to cooperate in drafting a resolution on the settlements” and that the U.S. representative in the Security Council was “empowered” to coordinate with the Palestinian UN representative on the resolution.

The meeting also, according to the report, was aimed at coordinating Kerry’s attendance at the upcoming international Paris Conference set for January 15, 2017, in order to promote a further international move regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry, it said, offered to propose his ideas for a permanent arrangement “provided that they are supported by the Palestinian side.”

At the meeting, Rice pointed out the “danger” of the incoming Trump administration’s policies, the report stated, adding that both she and Kerry had advised President ‘Abbas to make no preliminary moves that might provoke the new administration. Rice even offered to help arrange a meeting between the Palestinian delegation and a representative from the Trump team, by enlisting the help of World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder.

Also at the meeting, Erekat warned that if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, the Palestinians would call to expel U.S. Embassies from Arab and Muslim capitals, the report said.

The report added that Kerry and Rice had fulsomely praised ‘Abbas’s policies and how he handled matters, and harshly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he “aims to destroy the two-state solution.”

It should be mentioned that both Kerry and Erekat have denied that there was any U.S.-Palestinian coordination in drafting the Security Council resolution.[1]

Following are excerpts from the Al-Youm Al-Sabi’ report:[2]

1229161The report in Al-Yawm Al-Sabi’

U.S. Representative To The Security Council Coordinated With Palestinian UN Representative On The Issue Of The Resolution Condemning The Settlements

According to the Al-Youm Al-Sabi’ report, “the minutes of the meeting – which was attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and on the Palestinian side by PLO Executive Committee Secretary and negotiations team leader Saeb Erekat, and head of Palestinian general intelligence Maj,-Gen. Majid Faraj – reveals that the sides agreed to collaborate regarding a resolution on the settlements.” According to the report, “during the meeting, the American side focused on coordination of positions between Washington and Ramallah regarding the resolution on the settlements, which was brought to a vote in the Security Council and adopted several days ago…”

The report stated that “the minutes of the meeting reveal American-Palestinian coordination regarding the resolution on the settlements” and that Kerry and Rice stressed that “they were willing to cooperate with a balanced resolution, and that Washington’s UN mission was authorized to discuss this matter with the Palestinian representative to the UN, Ambassador Riyad Mansour.” It continued: “The U.S.’s representative to the Security Council coordinated with the Palestinian ambassador on the issue of the resolution condemning the settlements.”

Coordinating Kerry’s Attendance At International Conference In France

The delegation also attempted to coordinate Kerry’s attendance at the Paris Conference, which will take place January 15, 2017, to promote a further international move for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the report. “As for the French initiative, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that he could not attend [the conference if it were to be held] December 21-22, but stressed that he could [attend it if it were to be held] after January 9. The Palestinian delegation stressed that ‘Abbas had contacted the French side, and that it had expressed its willingness to postpone the international conference [in Paris] so that the American secretary of state could attend.”

Possibility Of Kerry Presenting His Ideas For Permanent Solution

According to the report, “Kerry raised the possibility of presenting ideas for a permanent solution, provided that they are supported by the Palestinian side… and this refers to principles that have already been raised as part of the Framework Agreement.[3] He also proposed that the Palestinian delegation travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss these points, but according to the minutes, he did not contact the Saudis on this matter. [Additionally,] according to the minutes of the meeting, National Security Advisor Susan Rice rejected, and ridiculed, the offer to propose ideas, arguing that the [incoming] administration of Republican President Donald Trump will completely oppose them.”

Rice “Stressed The Danger Posed By The Trump Administration”

Rice, the report stated, “stressed the danger posed by the Trump administration, which could take a position different from that of all American administrations since 1967 on the issue of Palestine and Israel. She emphasized that she took seriously statements about moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and the Trump administration’s view of the settlements.”

Kerry and Rice “advised Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas to not take any preliminary steps that could provoke the Trump administration, such as dismantling the PA, turning to the International Criminal Court, or ending security coordination with Israel,” said the report, adding: “They [also] stressed the need to avoid military action or martyrdom [attacks], as these would greatly jeopardize the Palestinian position.

“They praised the substantial efforts of the Palestinian security apparatuses, specifically Palestinian [general] intelligence, led by Majid Faraj, as part of what they called ‘the struggle against terrorism.’ [The two] maintained that Palestinian-American collaboration in this area is among the closest of all the coordination between American apparatuses and security forces in the region.”

Rice Offered To Organize Meeting Between Ronald Lauder And Palestinian Delegation

“According to the minutes of the meeting, Susan Rice asked whether the Palestinian delegation could meet with a representative from Donald Trump’s team. She clarified that she could request intervention and could organize this by means of World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder. Saeb Erekat responded that he had already asked but that Lauder could not. He added: ‘We were told that they were still organizing the new administration, and that once they were done, they would officially meet with the Palestinian side.'”

Erekat: If U.S. Embassy Is Moved To Jerusalem, We Will Call To Expel U.S. Embassies From Arab And Muslim Countries

“When Susan Rice asked what the Palestinian response would be if the U.S. Embassy was moved to Jerusalem, or if a new settlement bloc was annexed, Erekat responded: ‘We will directly and immediately join 16 international organizations, withdraw the PLO’s recognition of Israel, and cut back our security, political, and economic ties with the Israeli occupation regime, and we will hold it fully responsible for the PA’s collapse. Furthermore, we will [call] on the Arab and Islamic peoples to expel U.S. Embassies from their capitals.’ Rice answered Erekat by saying: ‘It seems that future matters could be very complicated, and we are all apprehensive about sitting down with Erekat because of his absolute knowledge of these matters, and because of his memory and his sincerity.’ She expressed the American side’s respect and friendship for Erekat, and apologized for yelling at him in March 2014.”

“The Palestinian Delegation Officially Demanded That The Law… Designating The PLO A Terrorist Organization Be Rescinded”

According to the report, “the Palestinian side officially demanded that the 1987 U.S. law designating the PLO a terrorist organization be rescinded.[4] Furthermore, both sides agreed to establish a bilateral commission to examine visa requests from Palestinians and entry and movement visas for Palestinian leadership in the U.S.”

1229162Part of the minutes published in the report

Kerry, Rice Congratulate ‘Abbas “For His Stunning Success At Fatah’s Seventh General Conference”

“The Palestinian delegation thanked Kerry and Rice, and expressed Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas’s esteem for the views of U.S. President Barack Obama, Advisor Rice, and Secretary Kerry, and particularly for Kerry’s speech at the Saban Forum in early December,” the report stated, and added that the two U.S. officials had congratulated ‘Abbas “for his stunning success at Fatah’s Seventh General Conference and for his long and courageous speech (like those given by the late Cuban ruler Fidel Castro), during which he reiterated his positions and founding principles regarding his adherence to the peace process and his opposition to violence and terrorism in all forms.”

Also according to the report, Erekat and Faraj asked Kerry and Rice “to stress in the reports of the transition to the new administration that Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas, the PLO, and the PA are partners in the peace process, and that the Palestinian president and security apparatuses are strategic partners in the struggle against terrorism on the regional and international [levels].

“[They asked] that it be emphasized that there would be bilateral Palestinian-American committees in all areas (healthcare, education, agriculture, tourism, sports, trade, security, women, youth, and more) and that the new administration would oversee them together with Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Rami Hamdallah.” Additionally, the possibility of “establishing a joint database together with the Palestinian ambassador to Washington and a representative from Palestinian general intelligence” was raised.

Kerry and Rice said, according to the report, that “all the above matters will head the transitional report now being prepared by the team of the outgoing president, Barack Obama, for the new American administration.” They also “praised ‘Abbas’s courage, positions, leadership, and adherence to the culture of peace and to peace as a strategic option, in addition to his opposition to violence and terrorism, to the ongoing security coordination, and to his being considered a uniquely strategic and courageous leader in the Middle East. The success of [Fatah’s] Seventh General Conference. they [said], had effectively ended attempts by Muhammad Dahlan and others to weaken President ‘Abbas, who must now act to tighten his relationship with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt.”[5]

It continued: “Rice asked the Palestinian delegation to convey U.S. President Barack Obama’s gratitude to Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas for honoring all his commitments to him, and added: ‘Abbas was open and honest regarding all his commitments, especially regarding [Palestine] refraining from joining the 16 international organizations [as a member state].'”

Kerry and Rice also said that it was necessary “to continue American-Palestinian, Israeli-Palestinian, and American-Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation in all fields.” In this context, said the report, Faraj stressed that “the cooperation between Palestinian security apparatuses [and Israel] is carried out according to the clear and direct order of Palestinian President Mahmoud ‘Abbas.”

Kerry And Rice: Netanyahu “Aims To Destroy The Two-State Solution”

Kerry and Rice stressed that “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu aims to destroy the two-state solution, and Dr. Saeb Erekat foresaw Netanyahu’s plan to create one state with two systems four years ago. The two said that Erekat’s prediction was highly accurate, and that all Netanyahu has to offer is maintaining the status quo, in addition to guarantees to improve [Palestinian] living conditions,” the report stated.

“John Kerry And Susan Rice Asked That The Meetings Be Classified ‘Top Secret'”

Finally, the report stated: “John Kerry and Susan Rice asked that the meetings be classified ‘Top Secret’ and that what went on in them not be leaked, in light of the sensitivity of the transition between the two U.S. administrations.”

“The Palestinian delegation,” it said, “asked Kerry and Rice to reexamine the financial aid to the PA and not to reduce it, as they did when they cut it from $150 million in 2011 to $100 million in 2012, with the current aid proposal being only $39 million. According to the meeting’s minutes, the Palestinian side revealed that [U.S.]  financial aid to the PA was $400-$500 million between 2008 and 2013, and was cut to $370 million in 2014 and 2015, and then cut again to $290 million in 2016.[6]

“The Palestinian side praised the American administration’s aid to UNRWA, which averaged $277 million per year between 2009 and 2016, and asked for it to be increased in order to cover UNRWA’s $101 million deficit in 2016.”

 

[1] Wafa.ps, December 28, 2016.

[2] Al-Yawm Al-Sabi’ (Egypt), December 27, 2016.

[3] The Framework Agreement was proposed by Kerry in February 2014. According to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, this agreement included: Gradual Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank; Israel retaining some West Bank settlements in return for Israeli land given over to Palestinian control; security arrangements in the Jordan Valley for Israel’s defense; Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state within the 1948 borders; a right of return to the 1967, rather than the 1948, borders; and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem.

[4] 22 USC Ch. 61 designates the PLO as a terrorist organization, banning it from operating in the U.S. See Uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title22/chapter61&edition=prelim

[5] See MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis No. 1283, Fatah’s Seventh General Conference Will Convene Under The Shadow Of The ‘Abbas-Dahlan Struggle, November 28, 2016; Inquiry & Analysis No. 1282, The ‘Abbas-Dahlan Power Struggle Over The Palestinian Presidential Succession, November 28, 2016; Special Dispatch No. 6684, Reports In Arab Press: ‘Abbas Resisted Arab League Pressure To Appoint Successor – Despite Threats Of Sanctions Against Him, November 18, 2016; Inquiry & Analysis No. 1270, Tension Between Mahmoud ‘Abbas, Arab Quartet Over Initiative For Internal Reconciliation In Fatah, September 27, 2016; and Inquiry & Analysis No. 1290, Fatah’s Seventh General Conference Bolsters ‘Abbas’s Standing; Contradictory Messages In ‘Abbas Statements On Terror, Negotiations With Israel, December 21, 2016.

[6] All conflicting numbers mentioned above appear as is in the report.

Categories: Israel, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and the UN, Obama Lies, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian state, Two state solution, UN and Israel, UN Security Council
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UN, Obama Further Radicalize Palestinians

December 29, 2016

UN, Obama Further Radicalize Palestinians, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, December 29, 2016

Last week’s UN Security Council resolution sent the following message to the Palestinians: Forget about negotiating with Israel. Just pressure the international community to force Israel to comply with the resolution and surrender up all that you demand.

One thing is certain: Abbas and his Palestinian Authority cronies are not planning to return to the negotiating table with Israel. In fact, they are more belligerent, confrontational and defiant than ever. They have chosen the path of confrontation, and not direct negotiations — to force Israel to its knees.

One of Abbas’s close associates, Mohamed Shtayyeh, hinted that the resolution should be regarded as a green light not only to boycott Israel, but also to use violence against it. He said that this is the time to “bolster the popular resistance” against Israel. “Popular resistance” is code for throwing stones and firebombs, and carrying out stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.

The resolution has also encouraged the Palestinians to pursue their narrative that Jews have no historical, religious or emotional attachment to Jerusalem or any other part of Israel.

The Gaza-based Hamas and Islamic Jihad see the resolution as another step toward their goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic empire, and to “liberate all of Palestine.” When Hamas talks about “resistance,” it means suicide bombings and rockets against Israel — it does not believe in “light” terrorism such as stones and stabbings against Jews.

The UN’s highly touted “victory,” is a purely Pyrrhic one, in fact a true defeat to the peace process and to the few Arabs and Muslims who still believe in the possibility of coexistence with Israel.

The resolution has encouraged the Palestinians to move toward a diplomatic confrontation with Israel in the international arena, as well as increased terror attacks against Israel’s people — a harmful legacy of the Obama Administration.

 

Buoyed by the latest United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal, Palestinian leaders are now threatening to step up their diplomatic warfare against Israel — a move that is sure to sabotage any future effort to revive the moribund peace process. Other Palestinians, meanwhile, view the resolution as license to escalate “resistance” attacks on Israel. By “resistance,” of course, they mean terror attacks against Israel.

The UNSC resolution sent the following message to the Palestinians: Forget about negotiating with Israel. Just pressure the international community to force Israel to comply with the resolution and surrender up all that you demand.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians are not wasting any time by waiting for the international community to act against Israel on their behalf. Rather, they are thinking of ways of taking advantage of the UNSC vote to promote their campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel, especially in the international arena. One thing is certain: Abbas and his PA cronies are not plotting to return to the negotiating table with Israel. In fact, they are more belligerent, confrontational and defiant than ever.

In the days following the UNSC vote, the voices emerging from Ramallah and the Gaza Strip clearly indicate that Palestinians have put themselves on a collision course with Israel. This bodes badly for any peace process.

Earlier this week, Abbas convened the PLO Executive Committee — a decision-making body dominated by his loyalists — to discuss the implications of the new resolution. The declared purpose of the meeting: to discuss the decisions and strategy that the Palestinian leadership needs to take in the aftermath of the resolution.

The decisions announced following the PLO meeting are a clear sign of the new approach that Abbas and the Palestinian leadership have endorsed. The Palestinian leaders have chosen the path of confrontation, and not direct negotiations, with Israel. They see the UNSC resolution, particularly the US abstention, as a charge sheet against Israel that is to be leveraged in their diplomatic effort to force Israel to its knees.

The PLO decisions include, among other things, an appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch an “immediate judicial investigation into Israeli colonial settlements on the land of the independent State of Palestine.” Another decision envisages asking Switzerland to convene a meeting to look into ways of forcing Israel to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Geneva Convention, adopted in 1949, defines “humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone.”

The appeal to the ICC and Switzerland is part of Abbas’s strategy to “internationalize” the conflict with Israel by involving as many parties as possible. In this context, Abbas is hoping that the UNSC resolution will ensure the “success” of the upcoming French-initiated Middle East peace conference, which is slated to convene in Paris next month. For Abbas, the conference is another tool to isolate Israel in the international community, and depict it as a country that rejects peace with its Arab neighbors.

In addition, Abbas and his lieutenants in Ramallah are now seeking to exploit the UNSC resolution to promote boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. “The PLO Executive Committee renews its call to the world countries for a comprehensive and full boycott of Israeli colonialist settlements in all fields, as well as all companies working in or dealing with these settlements.” One of Abbas’s close associates, Mohamed Shtayyeh, hinted that the UNSC resolution should be regarded as a green light not only to boycott Israel, but also to use violence against it. He said that this is the time to “bolster the popular resistance” against Israel. “Popular resistance” is code for throwing stones and petrol bombs and carrying out stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.

The UNSC resolution has also encouraged the Palestinians to pursue their narrative that Jews have no historical, religious or emotional attachment to Jerusalem or any other part of Israel. Sheikh Ekrimah Sabri, a leading Palestinian Islamic cleric and preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was quick to declare that the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem, belongs only to Muslims. Referring to the wall by its Islamic name, Sheikh Sabri announced: “The Al-Buraq Wall is the western wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslims cannot give it up.”

So while Abbas and his Palestinian Authority consider the UNSC resolution a license to proceed with their diplomatic warfare to delegitimize and isolate Israel, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two groups that seek the elimination of Israel, are also celebrating. The two Gaza-based groups see the resolution as another step toward achieving their goal of replacing Israel with an Islamic empire. Leaders and spokesmen of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were among the first Palestinians to heap praise on the UNSC members who voted in favor of the resolution. They are also openly stating that the resolution authorizes them to step up the “resistance” against Israel in order to “liberate all of Palestine.”

“Resistance is the only means to end the settlements,” said a Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip. “We appreciate the position of those countries that voted against settlements.” He also seized the opportunity to renew Hamas’s demand that the Palestinian Authority stop all forms of cooperation with Israel, first and foremost security coordination.

When Hamas talks about “resistance,” it means launching suicide bombings and rockets against Israel. The Islamist movement does not believe in “light” terrorism such as stones and knife stabbings against Jews.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Qatar, reacted to the UNSC vote by saying that the world should now support his movement’s terror campaign against Israel. “We want the world to stand with the Palestinian resistance because it is just,” he said. “The armed resistance is the path to liberate Palestine and Jerusalem. Hamas is continuing to manufacture and smuggle weapons in preparation for a confrontation with Israel.” Mashaal did not forget to praise the US Administration’s abstention as a “correction of some American policies.”

Islamic Jihad, for its part, characterized the UNSC resolution as a “victory” for the Palestinians because it enables them to “isolate and boycott Israel” and file charges against it with international institutions. Daoud Shehab, one of the leaders of Islamic Jihad, added that the resolution means that Arabs should stop any effort to “normalize” relations with Israel or conduct security cooperation with it. The Arabs and Muslims should now work toward confronting and deterring Israel, he said.

Clearly, Hamas and Islamic Jihad see the UNSC resolution as a warning to all Arabs and Muslims against seeking any form of “normalization” with Israel. The two groups are referring to the Palestinian Authority, whose security forces continue to conduct security coordination with Israel in the West Bank, and to those Arab countries that have been rumored to be moving toward some form of rapprochement with Israel. The UN’s highly touted “victory,” is a purely Pyrrhic one, in fact a true defeat to the peace process and to the few Arabs and Muslims who still believe in the possibility of coexistence with Israel.

Thus, the UNSC resolution already has had several consequences, none of which will enhance peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Apart from giving a green light to Palestinian groups that wish to destroy Israel, the resolution has prompted Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to toughen their stance, and appear to be more radical than the radicals. Far from moving the region toward peace, the resolution has encouraged the Palestinians to move forward in two parallel paths – one toward a diplomatic confrontation with Israel in the international arena, and the other in increased terror attacks against its people. The coming weeks and months will witness mounting violence on the part of Palestinians toward Israelis – a harmful legacy of the Obama Administration.

Categories: Gaza, Hamas, Islam and conquest, Israel, Israel and UN, Israel settlements, Israeli "occupied" territories, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian state, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Islam, Palestinians and Jews, UN Security Council
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