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Palestinians: Abbas’s “Culture of Peace”

May 8, 2017

Palestinians: Abbas’s “Culture of Peace”, Gatestone Institute, Bassam Tawil, May 8, 2017

(Please see also, Palestinian Daily ‘Al-Ayyam’ Reports On ‘Abbas’s White House Visit. — DM)

Thanks to Abbas’s falsehoods, his media continues to this day dishonestly to talk about “Jewish invaders and settlers storming” Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. This and this alone is the source of the knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.

Perhaps by a “culture of peace” Abbas means calling — as he and his top officials regularly do — Israel an apartheid and racist state. Or maybe “culture of peace” means calling all Jews “occupiers” and “colonists” — or denouncing and threatening Palestinian children who play soccer with Israeli kids. Or naming schools and electoral lists after convicted murderers?

Under Abbas, anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination is a business that has expanded exponentially. It has, in fact, grown to the point that a new generation has been raised on the glorification of jihadists — a generation impatient to draw yet more Jewish blood. If this is Abbas’s “culture of peace,” one has to wonder what he would consider a culture of war?

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas may soon be known for his sense of humor. Like many Palestinians, Abbas believes that Westerners will swallow his lies wholesale. Abbas, for instance, ended his May 3 meeting with US President Donald Trump with the following whopper: “We are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace.”

Abbas did not provide further details about the “culture of peace” upon which Palestinian children are being raised. Nor did anyone bother to ask Abbas or any member of his entourage to provide examples of the “culture of peace” in Palestinian society. Yet major Western media outlets were quick to publish Abbas’s unmistakable lie.

US President Donald Trump meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the White House, on May 3, 2017. (Image source: White House video screenshot)

Apparently, like his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, Abbas is convinced that Palestinians can fool “all of the people, all of the time” about their true goals and intentions. Arafat lied to Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton when he told them that he and the Palestinian Authority were promoting peace and coexistence with Israel. Under Arafat, anti-Israel incitement in the Palestinian media, schools and mosques intensified until Palestinians waged the Second Intifada in September 2000. This intifada was the result of seven years of vicious incitement and indoctrination that came after the inception of the PA. In a truly ironic turn of events, the Oslo Accords, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993, gave the Palestinians media outlets, including television and radio stations, which were then used to amplify hatred against Israel and Jews on a daily basis.

Arafat used these media outlets to tell his people — when then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in September 2000 — that Israel was planning to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque. It was precisely this incitement that triggered the Second Intifada, in which Palestinians wage a massive and ruthless campaign of suicide bombings and drive-by shootings that caused the death of hundreds of Israelis.

Under Arafat, it was anything but a “culture of peace.” His message to the Palestinians was: “We will march towards Jerusalem and we will sacrifice millions of martyrs on the way!”

Unlike many Israelis who were murdered by Palestinians at Arafat’s incitement, Arafat’s famous battle cry is still alive and well. Currently, it is being echoed by many Palestinians, including children, during rallies and demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This call-to-arms openly encourages Palestinian youths to “march towards Jerusalem” and become “martyrs.”

Only one week before the Abbas’s meeting with Trump, the PA president’s Fatah faction called on Palestinians to take to the streets and clash with Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers. The call was made in “solidarity” with Palestinian prisoners who went on a “hunger strike” in Israeli prisons. The hunger strike was not about Israel’s prisons, well-known for being among the most comfortable in the world; the hunger strike was actually a political move to compete for which terrorist would be Abbas’s successor. The prisoners are terrorists, most of them with blood on their hands; the more blood, the higher the promotion.

In the fight for Palestinian leadership, being a “graduate” of an Israeli prison is far more important than being a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. The Palestinians’ former prime minister, Salam Fayyad. Fayyad, an economist and reformer adored in the West, received only 2% of the Palestinian vote.

By calling for clashes with Israelis, Fatah is inciting Palestinian youths to carry out violent attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers. This is the same Fatah led by Abbas — the same Abbas mouthing lies about a “culture of peace.” By voicing solidarity with convicted murderers and praising them as role models and heroes of Palestinians, Abbas’s Fatah pushes Palestinian youths to follow in their footsteps and engage in violence.

One day after the Abbas-Trump meeting, the current Palestinian Authority prime minister, Rami Hamdallah, participated in a rally in Ramallah, in solidarity with the hunger-striking terrorists. At the rally, Hamdallah affirmed the PA’s full support for the terrorists, by saying he was working to bring their case to the attention of the international community.

Like Arafat, Abbas continues to use alleged but non-existent threats the al-Aqsa Mosque to incite Palestinian youths against Israel. For the past 50 years, non-Muslims, including Jews, have been permitted to visit the Temple Mount as tourists. The visits were suspended when the Second Intifada began in 2000. But since the tourist visits resumed a few years ago, the Muslims have been trying to keep Jews away from the holy site. The Muslims claim that Jews are seeking to “destroy” and “desecrate” the al-Aqsa Mosque (on the Temple Mount) — a false claim that is added to the long list of lies and blood libels spread by Abbas and many Muslims. Abbas’s statement came in response not to any incidents at al-Aqsa Mosque, as Abbas and other Palestinians claimed: Tours of Jews to the Temple Mount are routine and peaceful.

In September 2015, Abbas stated that he “welcomed every drop of blood that is spilled in Jerusalem.”

Shortly after this statement, Palestinians began waging a campaign of knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis, in a violent insurgency known as the “Knife Intifada”. “We will protect Jerusalem and we will not allow them [Jews] to defile al-Aqsa (Mosque) and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with their filthy feet,” Abbas deceitfully announced.

It is still unclear why he decided to bring the church into the controversy surrounding Jewish visits to the Temple Mount. What is clear is that Abbas was lying: Jews had not entered either the church or al-Aqsa Mosque.

Ever since Abbas’s inciting statement, however, dozens of Palestinian youths have heeded his call by going out to stab or run over the first Jew they see. Their blood is on Abbas’s hands. He is the one who sent out the youths to “protect” al-Aqsa Mosque against the fictitious Jewish “invaders.” He is the one who continues falsely to talk about “herds of settlers storming al-Aqsa Mosque” — in reality, peaceful routine visits by Jews to the Temple Mount. Thanks, however, to Abbas’s falsehoods, his media continues to this day dishonestly to talk about “Jewish invaders and settlers storming” Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. This and this alone is the source of the knife and car-ramming attacks against Israelis.

This, evidently, is the “culture of peace” to which Abbas is referring. How can he utter such a staggering lie when his media and top officials continue to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews on a daily basis? How precisely is Abbas promoting peace when his Palestinian Authority names schools and public squares after Palestinian terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands? Earlier this year, for example, Abbas’s Fatah named a youth camp in Jericho after Dalal al-Mughrabi, a female terrorist who killed 38 civilians, 13 of them children, and wounded more than 70, in 1978.

By honoring the murderers of Jews, Abbas is, instead, solely promoting a culture of hate and violence. His message to Palestinian youths is, straightforwardly: the more Jews you kill, the more honor and respect you will receive from your people.

Abbas talks about a “culture of peace” at a time when he and his Palestinian Authority are even combating all forms of “normalization” with Israel. The anti-normalization campaign, in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities, targets any Palestinian who dares to meet with Jews (even “pro-Palestinian” Jews). It operates solely under the auspices of the PA government. This campaign also promotes boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Its goal is to intimidate Palestinians who work towards peace and coexistence with Israel and to ban any business with Jews. Can any Palestinian invite Jews to a meeting in Ramallah without being targeted by the “anti-normalization” thugs, many of whom are affiliated with Abbas’s Fatah?

Perhaps by a “culture of peace,” Abbas means calling — as he and his top officials regularly do — Israel an apartheid and racist state. Or maybe “culture of peace” means calling all Jews “occupiers” and “colonists” — or denouncing and threatening Palestinian children who play soccer with Israeli kids. Or naming schools and electoral lists after convicted murderers? Those seem like debatable ways to advance his “culture of peace.”

Under Abbas, anti-Israel incitement and indoctrination is a business that has expanded exponentially. It has, in fact, grown to the point that a new generation has been raised on the glorification of jihadists, a generation impatient to draw yet more Jewish blood. If this is Abbas’s “culture of peace,” what, one wonders, would he consider a culture of war?

Categories: Abbas meets Trump, Israeli security, Palestinian "culture of peace", Palestinian Authority, Palestinian child terrorists, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinians and media, Peace process, Two state solution
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The Agenda for the Trump-Abbas Meeting

April 27, 2017

The Agenda for the Trump-Abbas Meeting, Front Page Magazine, Caroline Glick, April 27, 2017

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

The day after Israel celebrates its 69th Independence Day, US President Donald Trump will greet PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas at the White House. The date of their meeting, May 3, is notable not least for its timing.

The timing of the meeting presumes a linkage between the establishment of Israel and the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is not merely obnoxious, it is also blind to reality.

In reality, an independent state of Palestine has existed for the past 12 years in Gaza. Rather than build that up and declare independence, Abbas and his comrades surrendered Gaza to Hamas in 2007.

Hamas, in turn, transformed independent Palestine into a base for jihad.

Abbas’s failure to declare independence in 2005 – and the subsequent failure of his US-trained forces to defend their control over Gaza in June 2007 from Hamas terrorists – is generally overlooked. But it is critical that Trump understand the significance of his behavior before he meets with Abbas.

Since the inception of the peace process between Israel and the PLO in 1993, the professed goal of the PLO has been to establish an independent Palestinian state on any territory over which it was able to take control from Israel. Yet 12 years ago, when Israel withdrew its citizens and military from Gaza, the PLO refused to take responsibility for the area insisting ridiculously that Gaza was still controlled by Israel.

Then 10 years ago, US-trained PLO forces fled to Israel rather than defend their control of Gaza when Hamas took up arms against them.

There are, it seems, two main reasons for Abbas’s behavior. The first is directly related to how he understood Israel’s decision to withdraw.

In December 2003, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon stunned the country when he adopted the platform of the Labor Party – which he had just massively defeated in the general elections – and removed all Israeli communities and military installations from Gaza, including from the border with Egypt, by the end of 2005.

Israeli society was nearly torn apart in the one year and eight months between Sharon’s surprise announcement and the expulsion of Gaza’s Jews in August 2005. The media hemorrhaged with continuous propaganda that demonized the Israeli residents of Gaza and the religious Zionist community in general.

A reminder of that toxic period came earlier this month, when Haaretz published a column by veteran reporter Yossi Klein in which he alleged that religious Zionists posed a graver danger to the State of Israel than Hezbollah.

Abbas and his lieutenants viewed the domestic chaos that engulfed Israel at the time as proof of Israel being on its way off the stage of history.

If this was how Israelis reacted to the destruction of 21 communities in Gaza (and four in northern Samaria) and the dispossession of 10,000 Israelis, it was clear to Abbas and his comrades that Israeli society would collapse if Sharon carried out his plan to reenact the Gaza withdrawal tenfold in Judea and Samaria after the 2006 elections.

Why accept Gaza if all of Israel was about to be destroyed – by its own hand? The second reason that Abbas didn’t declare independence in Gaza, is because he had no interest in being held accountable for his behavior – as leaders of independent states are. If he accepted sovereign power, then the Palestinians as well as Israel and, presumably, the rest of the world would be able to hold him to account for what happened within the territory he controlled. His ability to blame Israel for his failures would be diminished, at least in theory.

Far better, Abbas concluded, to pretend that Israel’s withdrawal was meaningless and blame Israel for his failure to govern his own territory.

Both reasons for Abbas’s rejection of responsibility over Gaza are important because they also reflect the views of the Palestinians as a whole.

Dan Polisar, from Shalem College, summarized in a recent article in the online magazine Mosaic, his study of more than 400 public opinion surveys of the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza taken by professional pollsters over the past 23 years.

Like Abbas in 2005, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians believe that Israel isn’t long for this world.

In one 2011 survey, for instance, a mere 23% of Palestinians said they were certain that Israel will continue to exist 25 years hence. 44% were certain it would not.

The fact that more than three quarters of Palestinians are uncertain if Israel will survive is not only a function of Israel’s own self-destructive behavior – it is premised as well on Palestinian ideology.

The vast majority of Palestinians reject Israel’s right to exist. Indeed, a mere 12% of Palestinians believe that Jews have ties to the land of Israel.

Polisar showed that, whereas a plurality to a bare majority of Palestinians accepts the premise of a twostate solution, the overwhelming majority reject any deal that would leave Israel intact as a viable state capable of defending itself. Equally importantly, 68% of Palestinians believe that even if a Palestinian state is established in Gaza, Judea and Samaria with Jerusalem as its capital, they should continue to aspire to Israel’s destruction.

In other words, even if the PLO signs a deal with Israel that says the conflict has been resolved, for 68% of Palestinians the conflict will continue. They oppose ending the education of their children to seek Israel’s destruction and accepting Israel as a peaceful neighbor.

This then, brings us to Trump’s visit with Abbas, the day after Israel’s 69th birthday.

What does he intend to discuss with Abbas? From media reports, it appears that Trump intends to discuss the Palestinian Authority’s subsidization of terrorism to the tune of $300 million each year, which it pays out as salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons and as stipends to their families.

In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News earlier this week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu urged Trump to hold Abbas to account for his massive budgetary outlays to terrorists and their families. He asked that Trump demand as well that Abbas stop the PA ’s indoctrination of the Palestinians to seek the annihilation of Israel and the murder of its citizens.

This is well and good. But it seems a bit beside the point. The point is that 69 years ago, the Jews established our state. A Palestinian state was not established then or since, not because Israel was unwilling for such a state to come into being, but because the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist.

If any good is to come from Trump meeting with Abbas – on May 3 or at any other time – then he should send the following message to Abbas and to the rest of the world.

To date, the US has supported the goal of Palestinian statehood, because it convinced itself that the Palestinians were interested in a state that would live at peace with Israel. The US pressured Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to encourage them to accept Israel. And the US funded the PA thinking that doing so would advance the cause of peace. It trained and armed PA security forces for the same reason.

To date, the Palestinians, the PLO and the PA have not lived up to their side of the bargain – on anything.

They have not come to terms with Israel’s existence; they have not abjured terrorism; and they have not accepted responsibility for the areas under their control, either in Gaza, or in Judea and Samaria.

Since his is a new administration, Trump is willing to give Abbas the benefit of the doubt for three months. In that time Abbas needs to stop all financial transfers to terrorists and their families – in and out of prison; he needs to change the names of all the public sites now named after terrorists; and he needs to purge all anti-Jewish content from his PA -controlled media and mosques.

If Abbas fails to do all of these things by August 3, then the Trump administration will abandon its support for Palestinian statehood and its recognition of the PLO .

Categories: Abbas meets Trump, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian issues, Palestinian schools, Payments to Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Peace process, PLO, Trump and Israel, Two state solution
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Why Is the US Still Funding Palestinian Terrorism?

April 19, 2017

Why Is the US Still Funding Palestinian Terrorism? Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, April 19, 2017

(Please see also, Towards the pending Abbas visit to Washington D.C. — DM)

Jamil Tamimi, 57, knew that if he committed an act of terror, he would be lionized by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and — perhaps more importantly — that, if he were killed or sent to prison, his family would be taken care of financially.

“The PLO Commission was new only in name. The PLO body would have the ‎same responsibilities and pay the exact same amounts of salaries to prisoners… PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas retained overall supervision of ‎the PLO Commission.” — Palestinian Media Watch.

In 2016 Bashar Masalha, who murdered U.S. Army veteran Taylor Force and wounded several others, was hailed on official PA media outlets as a “martyr.” A few months later, Abbas said on PA TV, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem…. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”

The U.S. government should let the PLO and PA know that we are onto their game. Disincentivizing terrorism by closing the PLO office in Washington would be a good first step.

British exchange student Hannah Bladon was stabbed to death on a Jerusalem light rail train last Friday. Her murderer was identified as an East Jerusalem resident who had previously been convicted of molesting his daughter and had tried to commit suicide. Failing at that, he apparently opted for terrorism, on the assumption that the police would kill him. They didn’t. “This,” the Shin Bet said in a statement, “is another case, out of many, where a Palestinian who is suffering from personal, mental or moral issues chooses to carry out a terror attack in order to find a way out of their problems.”

“Suicide by cop” is not unheard of, but the real incentives need to be spelled out.

Jamil Tamimi, 57, knew that if he committed an act of terror, he would be lionized by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and — perhaps more importantly — that, if he were killed or sent to prison, his family would be taken care of financially.

To take the PA leader, Mahmoud Abbas, at his word, the PA itself does not pay salaries or pensions to terrorists in Israeli jails or to their families; the money — instead! — comes from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). That sleight-of-hand would make this a perfect time for the United States, an ally of the UK and properly appalled by terrorism, to take a step it has been avoiding for more than 25 years: to close the PLO office in Washington — preferably before the planned visit by Abbas in May.

The PLO was once understood to be a terrorist organization and a terror umbrella. It hijacked airplanes and threw an elderly disabled man in a wheelchair overboard from a cruise ship. Black September, an arm of the PLO, murdered 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich. The PLO has committed acts of horrific terror in Israel — including massacring bus drivers and their families on holiday. Twenty-five adults and 13 children were killed and 71 others wounded. The PLO has also committed acts of war against the United States by killing American diplomats in Sudan.

In the 1970s and 80s, the U.S. generally knew what it was looking at.

During the Reagan-to-Bush “41”-transition, however, the U.S. dropped its ban on officially talking to then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. (Full disclosure: Colin Powell, then national security advisor, gave this author a “heads up”: “Everyone has something to say,” he said. “The U.S. government already knows what Arafat has to say,” I said, and it is unacceptable.” He was not interested.)

Talking was not the same as opening an office; that move was still prohibited by the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987. However, in the post-Oslo Accords euphoria, Senate legislation permitted the PLO an official mission in Washington “to implement the accords,” and it allowed President Clinton to waive the law barring U.S. funds to international organizations that gave money to the PLO. The House passed similar legislation. Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-CA) said at the time:

“This legislation provides a limited, temporary and conditional waiver of restrictions in United States law that would seriously impede the ability of Israel and the PLO to proceed with negotiating and implementing their landmark peace agreement.”

It was “conditional” on the PLO meeting its Oslo Accords obligations, including refraining from terrorism and renouncing international moves that would impede bilateral agreement on final status issues. While the legislation was, as Berman said, “temporary,” it came with the usual waiver provision, ultimately allowing Presidents to do as they wished.

Presidents, therefore, beginning with President Clinton, did exactly that, even as the Palestinian Authority supplanted the PLO as the “peace partner” and ignored the Oslo Accords at will.

In 2003, the height of the so-called “second intifada,” the Palestinian terror war against Israel, Colin Powell, by then Secretary of State, waffled through a statement suggesting that the Palestinians kindly refrain from not killing so many Jews. “We need to see a more concerted effort against the capacity for terrorist activity on the Palestinian side… It’s not enough just to have a cease-fire.” He then noted “progress in reducing attacks against Israelis” — but without mentioning that the IDF and Shin Bet had reduced them; not the PA. Nevertheless, President Bush exercised the waiver.

A 2011, a Palestinian bid for recognition as a full member of the UN failed, but the waiver remained. Over U.S. objections, “Palestine” joined the International Criminal Court in 2015. President Barack Obama waived the sanctions every six months — right through two Hamas wars against Israel.

Largely through the work of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the question of payments to terrorists and their families has come to the fore. Worried about foreign aid payments from the U.S. and the EU, in 2014 the Palestinian Authority claimed it stopped paying salaries and that future money would come from a new PLO Commission of Prisoner Affairs. However, PMW reported from Palestinian sources:

The PLO Commission was new only in name. The PLO body would have the ‎same responsibilities and pay the exact same amounts of salaries to prisoners; the ‎former PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs, Issa Karake, became the Director of the new ‎PLO Commission and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas retained overall supervision of ‎the PLO Commission.

Tower Magazine reported that in 2015, a year after the PA “officially” transferred authority over Palestinian prisoners to the PLO, it also transferred an extra 444 million shekels (more than $116 million) to the PLO — nearly the same amount that the PA had allocated in the previous years to its now-defunct Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs.

Citing PMW, Tower wrote that the transfer to the PLO was meant to evade pressure from Western governments that demanded an end to terrorist salaries — specifically the United States and the UK, which froze payments to the PA in 2016 over the problem.

In the end, perhaps, it does not matter whose bank account transfers the money to whose bank account:

In 2016 Bashar Masalha, who murdered U.S. Army veteran Taylor Force and wounded several others, was hailed on official PA media outlets as a “martyr.” A few months later, Abbas said on PA TV, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”

 

Abbas has not said much about Jamil Tamimi, last Friday’s murderer, and it is time to stop encouraging, threatening or demanding that he do so. Rather, the U.S. government should let the PLO and PA know that we are onto their game. Disincentivizing terrorism by closing the PLO office in Washington would be a good first step.

Categories: American government and Palestinians, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian funding, Palestinian heroes in Israeli jails, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinians, PLO, Terrorism funding, Trump agenda, Trump and Assad, Trump and Israel, Trump and United Nations
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Towards the pending Abbas visit to Washington D.C.

April 19, 2017

Towards the pending Abbas visit to Washington D.C., Israel National News, David Bedein, April 17, 2017

(Please see also, UNRWA Won’t Be Changing School Textbooks and Curriculum. — DM)

With President Donald Trump set to greet Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, at the White House on May 3rd, the time has come to examine how the US allowed the PLO to  trample upon ten US government PLO policy guidelines, and to examine what the current US administration can do to see to it that the PLO does not trample on Trump.

The US recognized the PLO during  the final month of the Reagan administration December 1988, on the condition that the PLO would recognize UN resolution 242, which required the PLO to  recognize the right of every nation to secure boundaries  – especially Israel . The PLO immediately ignored this requirements for US recognition.

It is not too late for the US to ask the PLO, under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority, to recognize UN resolution 242, which it has yet to do.

The US acted as  a witness and guarantor of the PLO/Israel Oslo Accords, signed on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. Known as the DOP, “The Declaration of Principles”, it spelled out mutual recognition of Israel and the PLO, and the formal denunciation of violence and terror. The DOP was premised on its ratification by the Israeli Knesset and by the central committee of the PLO. The Israeli Knesset ratified the DOP on Sept, 26, 1993, by a vote of 61 to 50, with nine abstentions. The PLO central committee was set to meet in Tunis to ratify the DOP on October 6, 1993. However, the one Israeli correspondent dispatched to Tunis to witness the PLO ratification, Pinhas Inbari, on the staff of the left wing newspaper Al HaMishmar, reported from Tunis that the PLO chairman announced that he could not get a quorum of the PLO to attend, so the PLO Central Committee did not convene to ratify the DOP.

It is not too late for the US, as witness and guarantor of the Oslo Accord, to insist the PLO, through the aegis of the PA, ratify the DOP.  Otherwise, the agreement between Israel and the PLO does not hold water.

US law allowed the PLO, all of whose components were designated by the US law as FTOs, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, to open an embassy in D.C. and allowed the PLO to dispatch representatives to the USA, but only if PLO would cancel the PLO Covenant, the document which defined the purpose of the PLO:  To replace and destroy the State of Israel. The PNC, the PLO National Council, met in special session on April 24, 1996, with the stated purpose that this session would renounce and cancel the PLO Covenant. The PLO, at that session, filmed by the Institute for Peace Education Ltd, only announced the formation of a committee to consider changes in the PLO Covenant.

A video and protocol of the session was sent to the US embassy in Tel Aviv, and to the US Congress. Prof. Yehoshua Porat, expert on the PLO and a candidate of  the left wing Meretz party for the Knesset, reviewed the video and protocols of the PNC session, and affirmed that the PLO had not cancelled the PLO Covenant.  The US embassy in Tel Aviv, however, ignored what had actually transpired at the PNC, and instead reported to the White House and to the US Congress that the PLO had fulfilled the requirements of US law with the cancellation of the PLO Covenant, allowing the US to roll out a red carpet to welcome PLO chairman Yassir Arafat as a dignitary in Washington one week later. The PLO was allowed to open an official embassy , which has functioned ever since, conditional on the US President signing a waiver every six months which extends the non- terror status of the PLO.

It is not too late for the US to insist the head of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority call the PNC into a special session to cancel the PLO covenant, as required by US law, before Abbas enters the White House on May 3rd, 2017.  Otherwise, the entry of Abbas to the US represents a challenge to US law.

As an integral part of the US Aid package to the Palestinian Authority, the US funds PA schools which instituted a war education curriculum, despite US objections. That PA curriculum does not prepare Palestinian Arab children to live in state alongside Israel. That curriculum indoctrinates all Palestinian Arab children to conduct a Jihad to liberate Palestine, all of what they considere Palestine, with no attempt to train the next generation for peace with Israel.

It is not too late for the US to demand an overhaul of PA education to prepare the next generation for peace.

US law forbids any agency that receives funds from the US from placing members of a designate FTO  – a foreign terrorist organization — on the payroll of  a US government funded entity. Yet the US funded UNRWA schools, which openly employ members and even leaders of HAMAS, putting them on the payroll. UNRWA, which now receives $400 million of its 1.2 billion dollar budget from the US, has ignored US directives to remove Hamas from the UNRWA  payroll.  And when UNRWA has removed some Hamas leaders from the UNRWA payroll, they simple return as senior employees  of UNRWA.

It is not too late for the US, as the leading donor of UNRWA, to insist that UNRWA fire members and leaders of Hamas who receive salaries from UNWRA – especially Hamas teachers, who dominate the Gaza UNRWA teachers union. Elections are imminent.

It is not too late for the US to reverse its decision to force Hamas into the PA electoral process.

The US helped to create the  PSF, the Palestinian Security Force of the Palestinian Authority. However, the US embassy and US State department have ignored all inquiries challenging the PSF inclusion of Palestinian terror organizations which have never demonstrated any peaceful intentions, to say the least.

It is not too late for the US to ask the PSF to remove  Palestinian terror groups from its ranks.

The US enacted the  Koby Mandell act which requires the US to pursue and prosecute thoe who maim or kill US citizens abroad. Until the inauguration of President Trump, the US would not enforce the act concerning American citizens attacked  in Israel by terrorists. The new Trump administration has begun to file indictments of terrorists who murdered US citizens in Israel.

It is not too late, Trump has demonstrated, for the US government to enforce the Koby Mandell act.

The US established an office in the US State Department to monitor anti Semitism in 2008. However, that office has  refused to examine PA anti-Semitism. While there are rumors that Trump will not renew funding for the US office that tracks anti-Semitism, it is not too late for the US to examine the tentacles of official Palestinian Authority ant-Semitism which can be tracked world- wide.

The US created a special commission to form a Palestinian Authority constitution. However, the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi , the late Vatican official who examined the draft of the proposed PA constitution, and reported to the US, wrote  that the current PA constitution, which would form the basis of PA law in a Palestinian Arab state, does not allow for any  juridical status of  any religion other than Islam. Futhermore,  the Papal Nuncio  warned that the proposed US-funded PA constitution was  based on the strict Sharia law used in Saudi Arabia, and not on a more tolerant Sharia law that Archbishop Sambi had witnessed in  his earlier postings in Indonesia and Bangladesh.

It is not too late for the US government to reconsider the nature of jurisprudence that would exist in any kind of future Palestinian Arab entity.

Categories: Abbas, Hamas, Israel, Israel and human rights, Israel and UN, Israeli democracy, Obama and Hamas, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian child terrorists, Palestinian elections, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian issues, Palestinian schools, Terrorism funding, Trump and Israel, UN and Israel, UNRWA
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Violent Incitement, Not Grievance, Drives Knife Wielding Palestinian Kids

October 27, 2016

Violent Incitement, Not Grievance, Drives Knife Wielding Palestinian Kids, Investigative Project on Terrorism, October 27, 2016

Israeli security intercepted a plot Wednesday involving two 8-year-old, knife wielding Palestinian children seeking to carry out a stabbing attack against Israelis.

The children “admitted to have been sent, armed with knives, in order to carry out a terror attack,” the Israel Defense Forces said.

The boys were seen near a security fence and detained outside of a Jewish community in the West Bank, south of Jerusalem.

Over the last year, Palestinian terrorists have killed over 34 Israelis and wounded dozens. Some of the terrorists conducting stabbing attacks were as young as 11.

Mainstream U.S. media outlets continue to push the argument that Israel’s military presence and Palestinian despair are the root causes of Palestinian attacks. Yet this line of reasoning cannot explain the terrorist motivations of 8-year-old boys. Hateful brainwashing and ideological radicalization is at the core of this phenomenon. Observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will find ample evidence that confirms systematic and societal-level brainwashing of young Palestinians, glorifying terrorists, and encouraging future generations to attack and kill Jews.

Over the years, Palestinian children have participated in terrorist promoting parades in the Gaza Strip and are taught to prepare for a holy war against the “Zionist enemy.”

“Children in this world do not dream about becoming doctors, pilots or engineers,” journalist Khaled Abu Toameh notes. “Rather, they dream of destroying Israel and ‘liberating Palestine.’ In fact, an entire generation of Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been raised on the glorification of suicide bombers and anyone who kills a Jew.”

Last week, students at Ramallah’s Al-Quds University established a memorial for the school’s “heroic Martyrs” who participated in deadly attacks targeting Israelis.

“Beware of natural death; do not die, but amidst the hail of bullets,” reads text on the memorial stone and translated by Palestinian Media Watch. It remains Palestinian Authority (PA) policy to encourage young Palestinians to engage in terrorism, even if it means certain death. In July, the PA glorified Palestinian high school students killed while conducting terrorist attacks against Israelis, arguing that the youth took “the path to excellence and greatness” over completing studies and enhancing their lives.

Western governments, media outlets, and human rights organizations have yet to express outrage at the exploitation of young children to commit murder. Instead of focusing solely on Israel’s presence, international actors could help young Palestinians by exposing and pressuring the forces that contribute to their desperation – the Palestinian politicians and institutions that consistently fuel societal incitement and violent brainwashing.

Categories: Israeli security, Palestinian child terrorists, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools
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Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report

May 29, 2016

Israel and the Palestinians: What the media won’t report, Gatestone Institute via YouTube, May 28, 2016

Categories: Free world, Hamas, Israel, Israel and human rights, Jewish state, Media, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Palestinians and media, Two state solution, UN Human RIghts Council, United Nations
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New UK campaign – it’s ‘payback time’ for the EU

May 9, 2016

New UK campaign – it’s ‘payback time’ for the EU, Israel National News, Ari Yashar, May 9, 2016

As the UK is poised ahead of a fateful vote on whether or not to remain in the EU, a group of concerned British ex-pats and Israelis have launched a new “Support Israel-Leave Europe” campaign to get Britain out of the EU and stop helping its efforts against the Jewish state.

The campaign, which is funded by Jewish land rights watchdog Regavim and whose website can be viewed here, has launched a humorous video of Hamas terrorists calling on the UK to stay in the EU to continue helping fund the terrorists in their fight against Israel.

Regavim’s work on the project comes amid their legal battle against the EU over its funding of illegal Arab settlements in Area C, the region in Judea and Samaria designated as being under full Israeli control by the 1994 Oslo Accords and which contains all the Jewish residents.  Area A is under complete Arab control and only security in Area B is controlled by Israel.

The new “Support Israel-Leave Europe” campaign presents several major reasons why those who support the Jewish state should want to see Britain leave and consequently weaken the EU.

Firstly, the EU has paid millions in aid money to the Palestinians, a large portion of which is going directly to pay the salaries of terrorist murderers.

Another strike against the EU is its funding of illegal Arab buildings in Area C, as it has built over 1,000 structures in the region to create a de-facto state of “Palestine” there.

The campaign also argues the EU’s recent campaign to label all Jewish products made in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights is a form of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, and finally it notes that the EU provides huge budgets for hundreds of virulently anti-Israeli NGOs to support their work delegitimizing Israel and conducting lawfare against it.

“For decades the European Union has meddled in Israeli affairs to the detriment of the Jewish State, for thousands of Israel supporters in the United Kingdom and ex-pats around the globe, it’s pay back time,” said Ari Briggs, Regavim’s international director.

“We call on everyone who supports Israel to ‘vote leave’ and deal a major blow to this mammoth bureaucracy that has an unhealthy obsession with Israel.”

Briggs warned that “the double standard in which the EU holds Israel, is nothing short of state-sponsored anti-Semitism. We encourage all eligible ex-pats in Israel and elsewhere to make sure they are on the electoral registry before the June 7th deadline to ensure they can vote, all the information needed is provided on our website.”

Categories: BREXIT, Britain, European Union, Israel, Israel and EU, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, Palestinians and Jews, Support for terrorism
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UNRWA celebrates bus bombing, Israel does nothing

April 26, 2016

UNRWA celebrates bus bombing, Israel does nothing, Israel National News, Shimon Cohen, April 25, 2016

Bus bombingJerusalem bus bombed by Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour Nati Shohat/Flash 90

At a facility in Judea of UNRWA, the UN body tasked with caring for “Palestinian refugees,” a festive ceremony was held on Monday honoring Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, the 19-year-old Hamas terrorist who exactly a week ago bombed a bus in southeastern Jerusalem.

Journalist David Bedein, director of the Jerusalem-based Israel Resource News Agency as well as the Center for Near East Policy Research, told Arutz Sheva about the UN event to honor the terrorist who conducted the first bus bombing of the current terror wave, in which he died while wounding 15 victims.

The investigative journalist revealed that Israeli media consciously has been ignoring UNRWA’s ties to terrorism, and the Israeli government is culpable as well.

Bedein said he sent a film crew to capture “the festivities for the ‘martyr’ who fell victim, while encouraging the right of return,” in reference to how UNRWA works to keep “Palestinian refugees” from integrating in other countries as opposed to UN policy on all other refugees. UNRWA instead demands all five million descendants of Arabs who left Israel in the 1948 War of Independence be returned.

The event honoring Abu Srour took place “in a facility called Aida (near Bethlehem), a facility that at its gate has a huge monument of a lock and key symbolizing the hope of Palestinian return to the villages of 1948,” Bedein told Arutz Sheva.

This monument, noted the journalist, was paid for by funds that arrived from the German government, and a school at the facility was funded by the US, Canada, Sweden, Australia and other Western nations.

“The central topic of studies there is the right of return in context of the armed struggle,” he said, describing terrorist indoctrination at the site.

Bedein said that members of his film crew aren’t only documenting the UNRWA festivities celebrating the terrorist Abu Srour, but also are interviewing his family members. The movie they are preparing will soon be screened in front of American Congressmen.

“They are proud that he is a ‘martyr,'” the journalist said of the bus bomber’s family.

UNRWA ‘martyr’ schools

Speaking about documentation that his film crew previously conducted at an UNRWA school, he said the crew filmed and translated the textbooks studied at the organization’s educational institutions.

In the schools, “this entire topic of being a ‘martyr’ is thought to be very honorable. He (Abu Srour) graduated from the school there (at Aida), and all of his family members are studying there.”

“Currently there is quiet from the Israeli government, which is not stipulating the transfer of funds to UNRWA on the cancellation of the new study program that talks about the return in context of the armed struggled,” said Bedein.

He detailed how for the last 20 or so years there has been an alternate study program dealing with peace, but it has not been implemented in Palestinian schools at all and particularly not in UNRWA schools, because of the veto placed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the program.

“Shimon Peres talks about the alternate program all the time, but he just forgets to mention that as it happens it is not being implemented,” he added. “This is a program that was prepared as part of the Oslo (Accords) process as a study program meant to advance values of peace, but it is not being implemented.”

Israel blocking US law against terror indoctrination

Bedein also criticized Maj. Gen. (res) Amos Gilad, director of the Defense Ministry’s Political-Military Affairs Bureau.

He noted that Gilad “two weeks ago got up at the Truman Institute and spoke about (PA Chairman Mahmoud) Abbas’ aspirations for peace. I sent him a question (asking) what about the educational system, and he still hasn’t dealt with (the question).”

“There is no statement from the government of Israel demanding stipulation of this sort,” he said, calling for the transfer of funds to be conditioned on the end of the terror inciting educational program.

The journalist told Arutz Sheva that “this week there will be a hearing in the American Congress on the bill of the Chairman of the Middle East Committee in the House of Representatives to condition the transfer of funds to the Palestinian Authority on a change in the educational system.”

“The law still hasn’t been passed because the government of Israel still hasn’t given its support for it, and AIPAC is silent and in effect is killing the bill.”

Bedein concluded by noting that he sent a press release on the UNRWA celebrations for the terrorist Abu Srour to 600 journalists throughout Israel, and other than Arutz Sheva, not a single one contacted him back.

When he contacted them to confirm that the materials reached them, he was told that they did indeed arrive, but when he asked why they did not report on the celebrations he was not given an answer.

Categories: Hamas, Israel, Israeli government, Jerusalem bus bombing, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian schools, Palestinian terrorists, UNRWA
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Palestinian Teachers on Strike — Against the Real ‘Occupier’

March 10, 2016

Palestinian Teachers on Strike — Against the Real ‘Occupier’ Algemeiner, Stephen M. Flatow, March 10, 2016

Address by His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine

Address by His Excellency Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine

JNS.org – It has taken more than a month, but the international news media are finally waking up to the fact that the largest teacher’s strike in memory is raging in the Middle East.

In a major feature story on March 8, the New York Times reported that “public schools across the West Bank have been shuttered” since early February, when more than 20,000 Palestinian public school teachers went on strike. The strike has led to “the largest demonstrations in years,” including “four large demonstrations in [the Palestinian Authority capital of] Ramallah,” Times correspondents Diaa Hadid and Ramni Nazzal revealed. That news must have been quite a surprise to Times readers, since the newspaper had not reported on these huge protests until now.

Hadid and Nazzal have eagerly reported on Palestinian “demonstrations” (their euphemism for mobs hurling firebombs and rocks) when the targets were Israelis. The problem this time around is that the target is the Palestinian Authority (PA).

American correspondents in the Middle East seldom report news that is unfavorable to the PA. It’s no mystery why they form a protective cordon around the Palestinian leadership. Most reporters, and most of their editors, would like to see a Palestinian state established as soon as possible, and they know that unfavorable news coverage of the PA leadership could turn American public opinion against Palestinian statehood.

That’s why the Times was so slow to report on the strike. News of the teachers’ actions undermines the cause of Palestinian statehood in three important ways:

— First, the strike reveals the totalitarian ways of the PA, a reminder that a Palestinian state likewise would be a corrupt and dangerously unstable dictatorship. Look at the PA’s strong-arm tactics: Last week, the PA police arrested 20 teachers and two school principals for participating in a rally supporting the strikers.

The Times reports that the PA also has “forced a Palestinian legislator who tried to mediate an end to the crisis into early retirement.” And Haaretz reports that “the PA security services set up rings of checkpoints to prevent the teachers from attending a demonstration” in supporter of the strikers. The US State Department’s latest annual report on human rights found that under the PA, there are “restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and assembly.” There are “limits on freedom of association and movement.” But the State Department report did not attract the interest of the news media.

— The second way in which the teachers strike undermines the Palestinian cause is that it focuses attention on the ultimate reason behind the strike: the PA’s extreme militarization. And that is another red flag with regard to Palestinian statehood. Two years later, the PA promised to increase teachers’ salaries, but now says it doesn’t have enough money to pay the teachers. Why is it out of money? Because the PA has one of the largest per capita security forces in the world, as more than half of all PA employees are in the security forces. The money owed to the teachers is being diverted to the PA’s de-facto army. Which dark regimes of the 1930s does that remind you of?

— Third, the strike reminds the world that the Palestinians are striking against the Palestinian Authority because the “Israeli occupation” ended long ago, and it is the PA which is the occupier. Perpetuating the myth of the “Israeli occupation” helps gin up international sympathy for the idea of a Palestinian state.

Those of us who dwell in the real world know that in 1995, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo II Accord and withdrew Israel’s forces from the cities where 98 percent of the Palestinians reside. For more than 20 years, the Palestinians have been occupied by the PA, not Israel. It is the PA, not Israel, which is in control of Palestinian education, culture, elections, the economy, and all other facets of communal life. About the only thing the PA can’t do is import and tanks and planes.

Acknowledging this reality interferes with the agenda of those who advocate the Palestinian cause. Amazingly, in the very same edition of the Times that reported on the strike, columnist Roger Cohen, a veteran critic of Israel, wrote, “Today, it is Palestinians in the West Bank who are dehumanized through Israeli dominion…The West Bank is the tomb of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Wake up, Mr. Cohen. Turn to page 10 of your own newspaper. Read about the Palestinian teachers who are being dehumanized through the PA’s dominion. Face the reality that Israel is still Jewish and still democratic. Israeli citizens vote in Israel; Palestinians vote in PA elections (when their leaders are in the mood to hold elections). Your 1980s-style slogans about the “Israeli occupation” just don’t cut it any longer.

If the editors and reporters of the Times could indefinitely ignore the teacher strike against the PA occupation regime — just as Roger Cohen ignores it —surely they would. But after more than a month of silence, the folks at the Times have recognized that if they continue to black out the news of the strike, it undermines their credibility as a newspaper. And so the news is finally out, much to the dismay of Israel-bashers everywhere.

Categories: Abbas, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian schools, Palestinians, Palestinians and media
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