All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive peace talks have failed,” says Abbas.
Talestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ( abu mazen ).. (photo credit:REUTERS) o
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday threatened to halt security coordination with Israel unless the peace talks are revived.
“We are no longer able to live with the status quo,” Abbas said in a speech before an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
He also reiterated the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
“We recognize the State of Israel, but we won’t recognize a Jewish state at all,” Abbas stressed.
The meeting was held to discuss the latest developments surrounding the Palestinian issue in light of Abbas’s plan to seek a UN Security Council resolution that sets a timeline for Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Abbas is hoping to win the Arab ministers’ support for his plan in wake of US pressure to refrain from presenting it to the Security Council.
Abbas has said in the past that he intends to present the plan to the Security Council by the end of this month.
“The situation in the West Bank is dangerous and can’t continue as it is,” Abbas said in his speech. “The most dangerous thing facing the Palestinian cause at this time is the continuation of the status quo.”
He said that Israel knows very well that there would be no Palestinian state without the Gaza Strip. Israel, he charged, is continuing with its policy of creating facts on the ground by building settlements on Palestinian territories.
“Israel does not know where its borders are and is refusing to define them,” Abbas said. “We will present an Arab plan to the Security Council calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. All indications are that US mediation efforts to revive the peace talks have failed.”
He said that the PA had asked US Secretary of State John Kerry to work together to draft the resolution that would be presented to the Security Council. The PA also asked Kerry to put pressure on Israel to stop settlement construction, Abbas added.
Amb. Prosor addresses UNGA debate on the Question of Palestine”
Mr. President,I stand before the world as a proud representative of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast aside.The fact of the matter is that when members of the international community speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fog descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity. The result isn’t realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.
The world’s unrelenting focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an injustice to tens of millions of victims of tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East. As we speak, Yazidis, Bahai, Kurds, Christians and Muslims are being executed and expelled by radical extremists at a rate of 1,000 people per month.
How many resolutions did you pass last week to address this crisis? And how many special sessions did you call for? The answer is zero. What does this say about international concern for human life? Not much, but it speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the international community.
I stand before you to speak the truth. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, less than half a percent are truly free – and they are all citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arabs are some of the most educated Arabs in the world. They are our leading physicians and surgeons, they are elected to our parliament, and they serve as judges on our Supreme Court. Millions of men and women in the Middle East would welcome these opportunities and freedoms.
Nonetheless, nation after nation, will stand at this podium today and criticize Israel – the small island of democracy in a region plagued by tyranny and oppression.
Mr. President,
Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.
Sixty seven years ago this week, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Simple. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no. But they didn’t just say no. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon launched a war of annihilation against our newborn state.
This is the historical truth that the Arabs are trying to distort. The Arabs’ historic mistake continues to be felt – in lives lost in war, lives lost to terrorism, and lives scarred by the Arab’s narrow political interests.
According to the United Nations, about 700,000 Palestinians were displaced in the war initiated by the Arabs themselves. At the same time, some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee from Arab countries.
Why is it, that 67 years later, the displacement of the Jews has been completely forgotten by this institution while the displacement of the Palestinians is the subject of an annual debate?
The difference is that Israel did its utmost to integrate the Jewish refugees into society. The Arabs did just the opposite.
The worst oppression of the Palestinian people takes place in Arab nations. In most of the Arab world, Palestinians are denied citizenship and are aggressively discriminated against. They are barred from owning land and prevented from entering certain professions.
And yet none – not one – of these crimes are mentioned in the resolutions before you.
If you were truly concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people there would be one, just one, resolution to address the thousands of Palestinians killed in Syria. And if you were so truly concerned about the Palestinians there would be at least one resolution to denounce the treatment of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps.
But there isn’t. The reason is that today’s debate is not about speaking for peace or speaking for the Palestinian people – it is about speaking against Israel. It is nothing but a hate and bashing festival against Israel.
Mr. President,
The European nations claim to stand for Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – freedom, equality, and brotherhood – but nothing could be farther from the truth.
I often hear European leaders proclaim that Israel has the right to exist in secure borders. That’s very nice. But I have to say – it makes about as much sense as me standing here and proclaiming Sweden’s right to exist in secure borders.
When it comes to matters of security, Israel learned the hard way that we cannot rely on others – certainly not Europe.
In 1973, on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar – the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack against Israel. In the hours before the war began, Golda Meir, our Prime Minister then, made the difficult decision not to launch a preemptive strike. The Israeli Government understood that if we launched a preemptive strike, we would lose the support of the international community.
As the Arab armies advanced on every front, the situation in Israel grew dire. Our casualty count was growing and we were running dangerously low on weapons and ammunition. In this, our hour of need, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed to send Galaxy planes loaded with tanks and ammunition to resupply our troops. The only problem was that the Galaxy planes needed to refuel on route to Israel.
The Arab States were closing in and our very existence was threatened – and yet, Europe was not even willing to let the planes refuel. The U.S. stepped in once again and negotiated that the planes be allowed to refuel in the Azores.
The government and people of Israel will never forget that when our very existence was at stake, only one country came to our aid – the United States of America.
Israel is tired of hollow promises from European leaders. The Jewish people have a long memory. We will never ever forget that you failed us in the 1940s. You failed us in 1973. And you are failing us again today.
Every European parliament that voted to prematurely and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state is giving the Palestinians exactly what they want – statehood without peace. By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence. You are sending the message that the Palestinian Authority can sit in a government with terrorists and incite violence against Israel without paying any price.
The first E.U. member to officially recognize a Palestinian state was Sweden. One has to wonder why the Swedish Government was so anxious to take this step. When it comes to other conflicts in our region, the Swedish Government calls for direct negotiations between the parties – but for the Palestinians, surprise, surprise, they roll out the red carpet.
State Secretary Söder may think she is here to celebrate her government’s so-called historic recognition, when in reality it’s nothing more than an historic mistake.
The Swedish Government may host the Nobel Prize ceremony, but there is nothing noble about their cynical political campaign to appease the Arabs in order to get a seat on the Security Council. Nations on the Security Council should have sense, sensitivity, and sensibility. Well, the Swedish Government has shown no sense, no sensitivity and no sensibility. Just nonsense.
Israel learned the hard way that listening to the international community can bring about devastating consequences. In 2005, we unilaterally dismantled every settlement and removed every citizen from the Gaza Strip. Did this bring us any closer to peace? Not at all. It paved the way for Iran to send its terrorist proxies to establish a terror stronghold on our doorstep.
I can assure you that we won’t make the same mistake again. When it comes to our security, we cannot and will not rely on others – Israel must be able to defend itself by itself.
Mr. President,
The State of Israel is the land of our forefathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is the land where Moses led the Jewish people, where David built his palace, where Solomon built the Jewish Temple, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.
For thousands of years, Jews have lived continuously in the land of Israel. We endured through the rise and fall of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman Empires. And we endured through thousands of years of persecution, expulsions and crusades. The bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land is unbreakable.
Nothing can change one simple truth – Israel is our home and Jerusalem is our eternal capital.
At the same time, we recognize that Jerusalem has special meaning for other faiths. Under Israeli sovereignty, all people – and I will repeat that, all people – regardless of religion and nationality can visit the city’s holy sites. And we intend to keep it this way. The only ones trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount are Palestinian leaders.
President Abbas is telling his people that Jews are contaminating the Temple Mount. He has called for days of rage and urged Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount using (quote) “all means” necessary. These words are as irresponsible as they are unacceptable.
You don’t have to be Catholic to visit the Vatican, you don’t have to be Jewish to visit the Western Wall, but some Palestinians would like to see the day when only Muslims can visit the Temple Mount.
You, the international community, are lending a hand to extremists and fanatics. You, who preach tolerance and religious freedom, should be ashamed. Israel will never let this happen. We will make sure that the holy places remain open to all people of all faiths for all time.
Mr. President,
No one wants peace more than Israel. No one needs to explain the importance of peace to parents who have sent their child to defend our homeland. No one knows the stakes of success or failure better than we Israelis do. The people of Israel have shed too many tears and buried too many sons and daughters.
We are ready for peace, but we are not naïve. Israel’s security is paramount. Only a strong and secure Israel can achieve a comprehensive peace.
The past month should make it clear to anyone that Israel has immediate and pressing security needs. In recent weeks, Palestinian terrorists have shot and stabbed our citizens and twice driven their cars into crowds of pedestrians. Just a few days ago, terrorists armed with axes and a gun savagely attacked Jewish worshipers during morning prayers. We have reached the point when Israelis can’t even find sanctuary from terrorism in the sanctuary of a synagogue.
These attacks didn’t emerge out of a vacuum. They are the results of years of indoctrination and incitement. A Jewish proverb teaches: “The instruments of both death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
As a Jew and as an Israeli, I know with utter certainly that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it.
Hamas’s genocidal charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide. For years, Hamas and other terrorist groups have sent suicide bombers into our cities, launched rockets into our towns, and sent terrorists to kidnap and murder our citizens.
And what about the Palestinian Authority? It is leading a systemic campaign of incitement. In schools, children are being taught that ‘Palestine’ will stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In mosques, religious leaders are spreading vicious libels accusing Jews of destroying Muslim holy sites. In sports stadiums, teams are named after terrorists. And in newspapers, cartoons urge Palestinians to commit terror attacks against Israelis.
Children in most of the world grow up watching cartoons of Mickey Mouse singing and dancing. Palestinian children also grow up watching Mickey Mouse, but on Palestinians national television, a twisted figure dressed as Mickey Mouse dances in an explosive belt and chants “Death to America and death to the Jews.”
I challenge you to stand up here today and do something constructive for a change. Publically denounce the violence, denounce the incitement, and denounce the culture of hate.
Most people believe that at its core, the conflict is a battle between Jews and Arabs or Israelis and Palestinians. They are wrong. The battle that we are witnessing is a battle between those who sanctify life and those who celebrate death.
Following the savage attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, celebrations erupted in Palestinian towns and villages. People were dancing in the street and distributing candy. Young men posed with axes, loudspeakers at mosques called out congratulations, and the terrorists were hailed as “martyrs” and “heroes.”
This isn’t the first time that we saw the Palestinians celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. We saw them rejoice after every terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and they even took to the streets to celebrate the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center right here in New York City.
Imagine the type of state this society would produce. Does the Middle East really need another terror-ocracy? Some members of the international community are aiding and abetting its creation.
Mr. President,
As we came into the United Nations, we passed the flags of all 193 member States. If you take the time to count, you will discover that there are 15 flags with a crescent and 25 flags with a cross. And then there is one flag with a Jewish Star of David. Amidst all the nations of the world there is one state – just one small nation state for the Jewish people.
And for some people, that is one too many.
As I stand before you today I am reminded of all the years when Jewish people paid for the world’s ignorance and indifference in blood. Those days are no more.
We will never apologize for being a free and independent people in our sovereign state. And we will never apologize for defending ourselves.
To the nations that continue to allow prejudice to prevail over truth, I say “J’accuse.”
I accuse you of hypocrisy. I accuse you of duplicity.
I accuse you of lending legitimacy to those who seek to destroy our State.
I accuse you of speaking about Israel’s right of self-defense in theory, but denying it in practice.
And I accuse you of demanding concessions from Israel, but asking nothing of the Palestinians.
In the face of these offenses, the verdict is clear. You are not for peace and you are not for the Palestinian people. You are simply against Israel.
Members of the international community have a choice to make.
You can recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, or permit the Palestinian leadership to deny our history without consequence.
You can publically proclaim that the so-called “claim of return” is a non-starter, or you can allow this claim to remain the major obstacle to any peace agreement.
You can work to end Palestinian incitement, or stand by as hatred and extremism take root for generations to come.
You can prematurely recognize a Palestinian state, or you can encourage the Palestinian Authority to break its pact with Hamas and return to direct negotiations.
The choice is yours. You can continue to steer the Palestinians off course or pave the way to real and lasting peace.
Recently, both, the West Bank and Jerusalem witnessed a level of violence unseen since the last Intifada. The main question here is: Why now?
The West Bank and Jerusalem were relatively calm during the last Gaza war in which over 1,900 Palestinians were killed. So, why is the unrest now, when there is no outstanding driver of Palestinians’ anger? Therefore, it’s safe to say the unrest was possibly planned rather than a reaction to a certain incident or provocation.
To answer the question above; one has to wonder:”Who is benefiting from the violence?”.
I prayed in Al-Aqsa almost every day I was in Jerusalem last summer, and I could confirm the daily routine: Non-Muslims, Jews, Christians or others, are allowed to visit the premises until 11:00 am, after that only Muslims are allowed to enter. Jews have entered Al-Aqsa as visitors for decades, where they are not allowed to pray by the Israeli authorities. This did not change in the last few weeks.
Nonetheless, suddenly the Palestinian, Jordanian and Qatari media(Aljazeera) began reporting on a daily basis:”Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa”.
In addition to the media’s messages, suddenly banners and posters started popping up across the West Bank and Jerusalem:”Jews are attacking Al-Aqsa, will you get angry?”, and around the same time those appeared violence began.
Surprisingly to some, Jordan’s king’s media launched an anti-Israeli campaign urging “a third Intifada for Al-Aqsa”. Why would the king do that?
Jordan’s king’s apologists usually claim the king lets his media demonize Israel and incite our young men to fight it just because “He wants to verbally appease his people who hate Israel”, only this time, this excuse won’t stick at all: The king’s media began inciting and calling for an Intifada long before any unrest in the West Bank or Jerusalem. A thorough and honest examination of Jordanian media would show mountains of evidence of that.
Needless to say, Jordan’s media is closely controlled by the king’s media office and his intelligence department.
In short, the king wanted this to happen. But did his role stop just with media incitement? Let’s see.
The unrest began with Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood members in Jerusalem, and the king has a least-known influence over those. Here’s how: The king in is full alliance with Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB). While this might shock many, the king’s former Minister of Political Reform, Bassam Hadadeen, said it live on Aljazeera: “The MB is a part of the Hashemite regime”.
In November 2012, when we, Jordan’s seculars, launched the largest revolution in Jordan’s history, the MB’s leaders told the media on 20 November 2012:”We have chosen to reform the regime and not let it fall”, and their members even attacked and terrorized the peaceful anti-King protesters.
While Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE have declared the MB as a terrorist organization, Jordan king allows the MB as a registered charity, with a licensed political party and a trust fund of investments worth $2 billion. Also, he openly refused to ban the MB despite Saudi pressure, to the point where Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported “Egypt’s Sisi was not eager to deal with Jordan’s king because of his support to the MB”.
In an interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffery Goldberg, the king didn’t deny his alliance with the MB, and said there was only “A 10 percent distrust from me, and 10 percent distrust from them”.
Hamas falls under Jordan’s MB in hierarchy, and all of Hamas’ top leaders are Jordanian citizens. Therefore, it is unlikely that the unrest was against the king’s wishes, because he could have stopped it, or at least reduced it if he wanted.
But why is Jordan’s king doing all of this? Despite the media not covering Jordan; the king is very unstable, just last week locals of central Amman surrounded the king’s palace three time in a row (This was documented by Jordan’s media itself). Both the majority of Palestinian origins and the East Bankers openly exhibit hatred and disrespect to the king. Gun battles between the king’s police and locals of Maan, South, have been ongoing for the last nine months; this is all documented.
Seeking to export his problems to someone else, the king knows that unrest in Israel, or an Intifada, could deter Jordanians’ anger from the king towards Israel, and also highlight his role as “peace mediator” between Israel and the Palestinians.
Further, Jordan’s king has a close partnership with the Palestinian Authority’s president Abbas. Abbas, a Jordanian citizen himself, has been collaborating with Jordan’s king on all major aspects Kerry’s peace plan, the Palestinian statehood bid and now the situation in Al-Aqsa.
Unrest in the West Bank and Jerusalem helps Abbas and Abdullah in defusing their people’s anger, gaining political momentum and appearing as the “only moderates in town” before the US administration.
Their tactics have worked; Netanyahu flew to Amman to meet Abdullah and Kerry to resolve the trouble in Jerusalem, thus Abdullah reinforced himself as “the custodian of holy places of Jerusalem.” Abdullah’s media portrayed the whole thing as a massive victory for Abdullah, and even confirmed:”Netanyahu will visit the king again to plea for Jordan’s ambassador returns to Tel Aviv”.
In short, Abdullah and Abbas won this round.
Jordanian opposition figure, Emad Tarifi– whose father was one of the founders of the PLO–told me:”Abbas is just a student of Jordan’s king’s agendas… “,”Abbas is in trouble; he threatened to take Israel to the International Criminal Court, and instead, Israel ended up taking him there..no Palestinian likes or respects him”, “The king is in the same position”, therefore, “They need the unrest [in Israel] to save themselves”.
Tarifi’s claims ring true: days ago Jordan’s king’s senior advisors organized a festival in Amman to commemorate Arafat’s anniversary, Palestinian attendees started calling Abbas names and accusing him of being “a puppet of Jordan’s king”.
As it seems, Jordan’s king and Abbas are in bed together, seeking to cause unrest in order to gain while Jordanians, Palestinians and Israelis lose.
This could have never happened if Jordan’s king feared any concussions-from Israel’s lobby in the US for example- but he knows that may never happen!
The unrest has not ended, and more trouble might be ahead for all of us as long as Jordan’s king and Abbas have an interest in it and could get away with it.
In short, Jordan and the PA are setting the West Bank ablaze with their tactics, and Israeli and Palestinians are paying the price.
Mudar Zahran is the Secretrary General of the Jordanian Coalition of Opposition, a known Jordanian- Palestinian politician and writer, who now resides in the UK as a political refugee. Zahran’s writing regularly appear in Arab, Israeli and American publications.
A massive amount of fireworks, knives and Tasers police believe were meant in part to be used by rioters clashing with police were seized last week by Jerusalem District detectives and officers from the Tax Authority and the Ashdod Port Customs, police announced on Thursday.
Police said the seizure came after Jerusalem detectives ran an undercover investigation along with the tax and customs officials, during which they were able to track and seize two shipping containers which came to Ashdod by way of China. The fireworks were hidden among Christmas decorations inside the containers, which were intended for Arab residents of the largely Christian east Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina.
Last Tuesday, three of the suspects arrived at the Ashdod Port and claimed the containers, and then drove with them on trailers to a storehouse in Afula, where they planned to unload the merchandise. They were then arrested at the spot before unloading the containers, as was the owner of the storehouse.
Inside the containers police said they found 18,000 fireworks of the restricted 20mm variety, as well as 5,200 commando knives, 4,300 flashlights that can be modified into improvised Tasers, 5,500 Tasers, and 1,000 swords.
…
Fireworks have become a highly popular tool of rioters facing off with police and soldiers during riots in the Arab sector, in particular in East Jerusalem. The firecrackers, including large roman candles, are pointed horizontally towards police and soldiers and fired like ammunition. Some of the larger gauge fireworks can penetrate police protective gear at close range, including their plastic shields. All can cause severe burns and if some of the larger ones hit on the right spot, such as the neck, they can potentially be fatal.
Just to remind you what fireworks sound like when used as a weapon instead of as a pretty, if noisy, method of entertainment, here’s a video I posted earlier this week of Arabs shooting fireworks at Jewish homes in Jerusalem:
The good news in this story of course is the fact that this weapons cache was discovered. The bad news is that it seems to have been discovered by accident, and who knows how many other shipments have already made it to Jerusalem, or are still en route?
Israel has arrested dozens of members of a Hamas terror network operating throughout the West Bank in recent weeks who were planning a series of attacks against Israeli targets, senior Palestinian officials told The Times of Israel. The network, they said, was funded and directed by Hamas officials in Turkey who have set up a de facto command center in the Muslim country.
The network was similar in its operational characteristics to one uncovered in August during the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the officials said Thursday night, adding that according to information received from Israel, this one was even larger. Its operatives had already attempted several attacks against Israel, they added, but they had all failed.
As with the previous network, the man behind the terrorist grouping was Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas leader who was deported from the West Bank to Turkey in 2010, the sources said.
…
The officials accused Turkey as well as Qatar — the current home of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal — of enabling Hamas to operate freely within their territories to carry out attacks against Israel and undermine the Palestinian Authority.
The involvement of Turkey, if only as a passive host of this dangerous terrorist, should come as no surprise as their Prime Minister President Erdogan has been relentlessly ratcheting up the anti-Israel rhetoric for years. It is long past time that Turkey, but in particular Erdogan himself, is held to account internationally for his incitement and his aiding and abetting of terror.
The above article contains another piece of goodish news:
On Thursday the Shin Bet said it foiled a Palestinian plan to assassinate Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman during the summer war. A group of Hamas members from near Bethlehem in the West Bank planned to purchase a rocket-propelled grenade, which would be shot at Liberman, who lives in an Israeli settlement in the area.
The group gathered intelligence on Liberman’s convoy to carry out the attack, according to the Shin Bet, and turned to Hamas officials in the area for help in acquiring the RPG. Israeli officials said they also uncovered during the interrogations Hamas plans to fire weapons and carry out hit-and-run attacks against settlers and Israeli troops in the area.
One’s blood runs cold when one thinks of what might have been.
File photo of Hamas terrorists preparing to launch rockets
For the fourth time in 24 hours a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip into the Mediterranean Sea, the IDF Spokesman’s Office said.
This suggests that “Gaza terrorists are experimenting in order to increase rocket-launching capabilities,” the army said.
Navy officials have said that Hamas fires rockets into the sea every few days as part of an ongoing project to upgrade their weapons. The launches are meant to test a number of projectile models.
On a number of occasions last month, Color Red rocket-warning sirens went off in Gaza border communities, sending residents fleeing for shelter for the first time since the end of the summer’s 50-day war with Hamas.
According to Palestinian sources, rocket tests have been going on over the past two months with at least 14 rockets launched in that time.
…
Residents of Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip reported numerous rocket alarms and explosions in recent weeks, all of which were later declared to have been false alarm by the authorities.
While sources in the defense establishment believe that “Hamas was sufficiently deterred by Israel after the summer’s operation and is unlikely to renew hostilities in the near future,” according to ynet, it seems that less than three months after the end of Operation Protective Edge Hamas has successfully repaired its infrastructure and has begaun preparations for a new round of hostilities.
We in Israel have to be prepared both physically and psychologically for a long drawn-out war, as well as preparing the informational, diplomatic and political battlefields.
On the one hand, in Ferguson, with an entire population on edge, the president and his attorney general are plainly siding with the lynch mob. On the other hand, when it comes to the Israelis and Palestinians in response to the killing of rabbis in a synagogue, the response is moral equivalence.
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Moral equivalence on parade.
Ferguson, Missouri, where the facts of the police shooting that killed Michael Brown have yet to be presented by the grand jury, an entire community braces for violence if the “wrong” decision is announced. While waiting, the Obama administration huddled with those who have a history of inciting racial violence and are heading to Ferguson.
In Jerusalem, where the bloody trail of Jihad streams from a synagogue, the response of the Obama administration is to play the moral equivalency card between Palestinians and Israel.
The contrast could not be more stark — or more telling.
First Ferguson: As headlined at The Gateway Pundit reports:
President Obama met with Ferguson protest leaders on November 5th, the day after the midterm elections. The meeting was not on his daily schedule. He was concerned that the protesters “stay on course.”
There was no Oval Office meeting or similar words of encouragement for those supporting either officer Darren Wilson or the simple concept of letting a grand jury work its will without intimidation.
The Orthodox Jewish men were facing east, to honor the Old City site where the ancient temples once stood, when two Palestinians armed with a gun, knives and axes burst into their synagogue Tuesday morning, shouting “God is great!” in Arabic. Within moments, three rabbis and a fourth pious man lay dead, blood pooling on their prayer shawls and holy books.
The assailants, cousins from East Jerusalem, were killed at the scene in a gun battle with the police that wounded two officers; one died of his injuries Tuesday night. Politicians and others around the world condemned the attack and the rising religious dimension of the spate of violence, which has been attributed mainly to a struggle over the very site the victims were praying toward.
And what was the president’s response? Mr. Obama read a statement in which he said that “too many Palestinians have died,” and “I think it’s important for both Palestinians and Israelis to try to work together to lower tensions and reject violence….We have to remind ourselves that the majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace.” There was no summoning of the Israeli ambassador no suggestion for Israel to “stay the course.”
What are we seeing here? It’s very clear and utterly unsurprising. On the one hand, in Ferguson, with an entire population on edge, the president and his attorney general are plainly siding with the lynch mob. On the other hand, when it comes to the Israelis and Palestinians in response to the killing of rabbis in a synagogue, the response is moral equivalence. Moral equivalence uttered while — quite literally, as seen here — Palestinians take to the streets to wave hatchets, and hand out food to gleefully celebrate the murders. Just as, it should not need to be reminded, Palestinians were in the streets celebrating on 9/11 when the twin towers fell and some 3,000 Americans were murdered.
This follows six years worth of the Obama administration absolutely trashing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel itself — whether rudelyleaving Netanyahu waiting around the West Wing while the president went off to dinner, or having an anonymous minion snarking to the Atlantic that Israel’s prime minister is a “chickens–t.” Recall the moment that played out in front of cameras at the 2012 Democratic Convention when it was discovered that somehow, mysteriously, the Democratic platform refused to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — and it had to be undone while delegates booed? As seen here it wasn’t pretty, the cameras picking up a delegate loudly shouting “no” while displaying an “Arab American Democrats” sign. Not to be forgotten is Obama’s personal history with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and Columbia professor Rashid Khalidi, both of whom have frequently been labeled as anti-Semites.
Thus the vivid illustration of the core of the modern left. A president stands with the lawbreakers in Ferguson as the town braces for riots. At the same time, confronted with the murder of rabbis in a Jerusalem synagogue — another chapter in the war of Islamic fascism against the Jews — he responds with moral equivalence. The Palestinians this…but on the other hand the Israelis that. And so on.
From Ferguson to Jerusalem, this is the mindset of the modern left that is on display. That mindset isn’t just ugly — it’s dangerous.
Sultan Abu Al-Einein, a Fatah Central Committee official (screen capture: MEMRI, YouTube)
Einein, who also serves as an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told the Iranian Arabic-language TV channel Al-Alam that “anyone who sells even an inch of our Palestinian land must be killed in the streets and hanged on an electric pole.
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Fatah official praises Yehudah Glick’s shooter, calls for public killings of those who engage in property transactions with Jews.
Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu Al-Einein said Palestinians who sell their land to Jews should be publicly executed.
Einein, who also serves as an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told the Iranian Arabic-language TV channel Al-Alam that “anyone who sells even an inch of our Palestinian land must be killed in the streets and hanged on an electric pole.”
The October 31 interview was posted and translated Friday by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, a US-based watchdog group.
Under Palestinian law, land sales to Israelis are illegal and a crime punishable by death. The PLO’s Revolutionary Penal Code (1979) applies the death penalty both to “traitors” and to those accused of “transferring positions to the enemy.” Since the late 1990s, Palestinian courts have been dealing out death sentences to convicted land dealers, though Abbas has not authorized the implementation of executions since his election in 2004.
In response to recent Israeli acquisition of apartments in Jerusalem’s Arab neighborhoods last month, Abbas issued an executive order amending the penal code to establish punishments for those who sell land to “hostile countries.”
Abbas’s new punishments for Palestinians who engage in property transactions with Israelis include hard labor and life imprisonment.
In the interview, Einein also praised Mutaz Hijazi, a member of Islamic Jihad who attempted to assassinate Temple Mount activist Rabbi Yehudah Glick last month, saying “the way to defeat the Israeli occupation is the way of the martyr Mutaz Hijazi.”
“If the people do not fight the Israeli occupation in the way they see fit, in order to liberate their land, they do not deserve to live,” he said.
You’ve been a great friend for the last six years and, to express our appreciation, we’d like to acknowledge some of your many helpful actions:
1) In 2009, our presidential election results were so dubious that millions of brave, pro-democracy protesters risked their lives to demonstrate throughout our country. When our Basij paramilitary force brutalized them, you kept your response irrelevantly mild for the sake of “engaging” us. That surely helped Iranians understand the risks of protesting our “free” election of 2012 (involving our eight handpicked candidates). It was indeed a very orderly rubberstamp.
2) After eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we KNEW you’d fall for the smiles of his successor, President Hassan Rouhani! Human rights abuses have actually worsened under his rule and his polished charm only makes him better at duping the world into acquiescing to our nukes, so we LOVE how you’ve overlooked these facts.
7) Speaking of enforcing red lines, we LOVE how you backed off yours, after our Syrian buddy, Basher Assad, used chemical weapons on his own people. That was a very helpful signal to everyone that we need not take your threats too seriously (contrary to those scary words you issued in 2012 about how stopping our nukes militarily was still an option, unlike containment, and how you don’t bluff). But we understood back then that you were trying to get re-elected, so we didn’t take it personally.
9) Fortunately, you don’t take our Supreme Leader Khamenei seriously when he tweets out his plan for destroying Israel (why let our true motives get in the way of a fantastic nuclear deal, right)?
12) It’s so cute of you to write us these letters asking for help against ISIS and showing us how desperately you want a nuclear deal. All we had to do was hint at an ISIS-for-nukes exchange and you got so excited!
14) What’s really awesome about the deal that we’re “negotiating” is that it allows us to continue nuclear enrichment but makes it even harder for Israel to take any military action against our nuclear program. And our agreement will give the press even more ammunition against such an attack. We already know about the world media’s anti-Israel bias – they can’t even get a simple story about vehicular terrorism against Israelis correct. Even we were surprised at how The Guardian writes accurate headlines when Canada suffers an Islamist car attack but not when Israel does). So if you accept our nukes and Israel then attacks them, the media will be even harsher on Israel (even though the world will be silently relieved, if Israeli courage succeeds at neutralizing what scared everyone else).
And after everyone sees the killer deal that you’re giving us, the world’s bad actors will line up to talk to you, with demands of their own that you can try to satisfy in the hope that they’ll stop opposing your national interests so much.
Overall, we appreciate you even more than we did President Carter, because getting nukes is WAY COOLER than holding 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days.
With our deepest gratitude,
Your Friends in the Iranian Regime
p.s. We’re glad you didn’t take any personal offense when one of our officials used the N-word to describe you back in 2010. He actually has nothing but respect for you, as do we.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.
One video version of the song “Run over [the settler]!” by singers Muhammad Abu Al-Kayed and Anas Jaradat has more than 385,000 viewings on the “Quds News Network” Facebook page. On one of the singers’ YouTube channel the song has more than 71,000 viewings.
Clearly, the Palestinians celebrating these attacks are not concerned about age or gender, security-force vs. civilian status, location (“East Jerusalem,” the “West Bank,” and Tel Aviv are all fine), or even whether the victims are Jewish or Israeli. They also are not devotees of a “two-state solution” with “two states living side by side in peace and security.”
Palestinian-affairs analyst Khaled Abu Toameh notes that:
The most popular [current Palestinian social-media] campaign is entitled Daes, which translates into “run over” in Arabic. Daes is also a reference to Daesh, the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The online campaigns feature cartoons that encourage Palestinians to use their vehicles to kill Israelis.
All sources agree that this wave of violence, which also includes rioting in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and in Israeli Arab towns within Israel proper, is being incited by the Palestinian terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Some sources also say external terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood—and ISIS—have had a hand in organizing or inciting the violence.
A major role is also being played, however, by Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and Israel’s alleged peace partner, and his Fatah movement.
With Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem serving as a flashpoint of the incitement, as Palestinians are whipped up by the entirely libelous claim that Israel is planning to destroy it, on October 18 Abbas declared that Israelis “must be barred from entering the [mosque] compound by any means. This is our Aqsa…and they have no right to enter it and desecrate it.”
On October 29 in Jerusalem a Palestinian named Mutaz Hijazi, who may well have internalized the message of “by any means,” attempted to assassinate Yehuda Glick, an advocate of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount—where Al-Aqsa is located, and which is also the site of the ancient Jewish First Temple and Second Temple. The Mount is the most sacred place on earth for Jews, and has a lower degree of sacrality for Muslims.
With anger, we have received the news of the vicious assassination crime committed by the terrorists of the Israeli occupation army against [your] son Mu’taz Ibrahim Khalil Hijazi, who will go to heaven as a martyr defending the rights of our people and its holy places.
Hijazi, it should be stressed, shot Glick, a civilian, at pointblank range. Fortunately Glick now appears to be recovering in hospital.
The assassin’s admirer, Mahmoud Abbas, is the same Mahmoud Abbas about whom President Barack Obama said last March:
I think nobody would dispute that whatever disagreements you may have with him, he has proven himself to be somebody who has been committed to nonviolence and diplomatic efforts to resolve this issue.
That was in an interview where Obama, of course, portrayed Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu as the recalcitrant party who needs to “seize the moment” and make peace.
Palestinian anti-Jewish terror has been rising and falling in waves over the course of a century. After years of relative quiet, this latest wave is clearly propelled by the current regional atmosphere of extreme Islamist brutality.
With Muslim Arabs of different sects committing atrocities against each other, and savagely attacking non-Muslim or non-Arab Kurds, Yazidis, Christians, and others, it should come as no surprise that the Jews of Israel are also under attack.
Israel will deal with the problem and eventually quell the violence as it has before. Israel, though, is the only target of the Middle Eastern aggression that is dogmatically demanded to “make peace” with a community that views it as having no right to live.
A more rational approach would acknowledge Israel’s identity as an island of light in the region and stop equating it with the side that goes on producing car-rammers, shooters, and stabbers despite all efforts.
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini (L) attends a media conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Jim Hollander)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has devoted special efforts in recent weeks to stop the diplomatic erosion of Israel’s stand in Europe’s capitals. As noted by Uri Savir in his latest Al-Monitor article on Nov. 9, there are growing indications that if the leading European states decide to take off their gloves in the fight against Israel’s right-wing government policies, the Barack Obama administration will not rush to use its long-standing veto weapon. Netanyahu’s weapon in the defensive battle he is waging for Europe’s soul is epitomized in the crushing question that he fires at guests from the neighboring continent: “Tell me, please, on which state in this region can you truly rely? On Syria? Iraq? Jordan? Egypt?”
The answer is obvious and also fairly correct: Israel is the most stable country in the Middle East and the only one that espouses Western democratic values. In the speech Netanyahu delivered at the annual memorial ceremony for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 5, he portrayed Israel as a bubble of Judeo-Christian well-meaning normalcy, which finds itself in a hostile Middle Eastern Muslim environment. “We were always proud of our democracy, which is unusual in the landscape that surrounds us,” waxed poetic the man who took part in the incitement against Rabin that preceded his murder.
He added, “Indeed, the State of Israel is not a violent country. We see this clearly in light of what is occurring around us — beheadings, throats being cut, firing squads, executions and so on. Israel’s exceptional nature in this landscape is remarkable.”
Indeed, if one measures it on a Middle Eastern scale, next to the Islamic State, the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and even the Egyptian administration of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israel’s democracy is a dazzling beacon. But, when Israel demands that Europeans judge it by Western standards, it must take into account that their values do not include prolonged occupation, the end of which is nowhere in sight. Europe never accepted the claim that Netanyahu made on Nov. 7 to European Union High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Federica Mogherini that settlements are not an obstacle to peace.
The correct question is not which country is the most wonderful in the Middle East, as Netanyahu asked, but which country that presumes to be a standard bearer of democracy and human rights would take the liberty, in 2014, of confiscating lands from foreigners to settle its citizens on them. What Western state withholds basic rights from millions of people living under its rule? What would the European Union do with a member state that conducts itself toward its Jewish minority the way Israel does toward its Arab minority?
In Netanyahu’s defense, it must be said that he does not have a copyright on the condescending and righteous attitude toward Israel’s surroundings. In an interview with The New York Times at the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, Theodor Herzl promised that establishing a Jewish state in the Land of Israel would provide Europe with a “new frontline bastion against Asian barbarism.” Max Nordau, Herzl’s close aid, claimed in his speech at the same congress that the peoples of Asia are “degenerates.” More than 20 years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak described Israel as “a villa in the jungle,” and subsequently upgraded the analogy to “an oasis in the middle of the desert” surrounded by a “turbulent world.”
Nonetheless, Barak stressed that while one hand must always have a finger on the trigger, the other must always be feeling its way toward the possibility of an arrangement with the neighbors.
In his book “Political Rhetoric: Israeli Leaders in Stressful Situations,” Nadir Tsur of the political science department at Hebrew University describes Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin, in his second term, as “formative leaders.” In addition to providing for the basic needs of the general public, Tsur explains, these men left their mark by adopting change and improving Israel’s lot. At the memorial ceremony for Rabin, Netanyahu said that “we all share” the slain prime minister’s hope that the political moves he made would create “an island of peace inside this violent ocean.” Nonetheless, he immediately added, “We all share this hope, but we are not averting our gaze and ignoring what is happening around us.” What diplomatic move of Netanyahu’s created “an island of peace”? Indeed, he does not ignore events around us; there is nothing he does better than warn against “the heaving ocean” around us.
On the day Netanyahu delivered this speech, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was laying out his credo to members of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
“[A]ny decision in foreign policy must begin with an analysis of the situation. And it must answer the question, where are we?” the noted statesman suggested. “The next question is, where are we going? Where we are going no matter what we do? And where should we be going?” After you answer these two questions, you have to define the limitations of what is possible, Kissinger explained, and warned that setting targets that the system cannot handle will cause it to explode.
“A great statesman operates at the outer limit of what is possible on the basis of a correct analysis and the difference between greatness and mediocrity,” Kissinger said.
Netanyahu’s rhetoric, deeds and misdeeds prove that based on his analysis of Israel’s situation, he has come to conclude that the best move is stepping in place and scaring people away from any change. But Netanyahu’s ultimate goal — perpetuating the occupation and bringing the Palestinians to heel — deviates from a long list of external limitations: starting with the demographic problem, through the state of Israeli democracy and up to the danger of losing the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan, withdrawal of the Arab Peace Initiative and a weakening of US and European support.
According to Kissinger’s diagnosis, Netanyahu is, at best, a mediocre statesman. Or, as was well put by Amir Peretz, who resigned on Nov. 9 from his job as minister of environmental protection, ”Netanyahu is not the solution — he is the problem.”
Secretary of State Kerry’s “peace process” actually put Israelis and Palestinians on a new collision course.
Not a single Palestinian Authority official has denounced the wave of terror attacks on Israel. They, too, are afraid of being condemned by their people for denouncing “heroic operations” such as ramming a car into a three-month old infant.
Kerry and other Western leaders do not want to understand that Abbas is not authorized to make any concessions for peace with Israel. For Abbas, it is more convenient to be criticized by the U.S. and Israel than to be denounced by his own people. Ignoring these facts, Kerry tried to pressure Abbas into making concessions that would have turned the Palestinian Authority president into a “traitor” in the eyes of his people. Abbas knows that the people he has radicalized would turn against him if he dared to speak out against the killing of Jews.
The recent spate of terror attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank did not come as a surprise to those who have been following the ongoing incitement campaign waged by Palestinians against Israel.
This campaign escalated immediately after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s last failed “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians. Kerry’s “peace process” actually put Israelis and Palestinians on a new collision course, which reached its peak with the recent terror attacks on Israelis.
Kerry failed to acknowledge that Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas does not have a mandate from his people to negotiate, let alone sign, any agreement with Israel. Abbas is now in the tenth year of his four-year term in office.
Nor did Kerry listen to the advice of those who warned him and his aides that Abbas would not be able to implement any agreement with Israel on the ground. Abbas cannot even visit his private house in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and he controls less than 40% of the West Bank. Where exactly did Kerry expect Abbas to implement any agreement with Israel? In the city-center of Ramallah or Nablus?
What Kerry and other Western leaders do not want to understand is that Abbas is not authorized to make any concessions for peace with Israel, and has even repeatedly promised his people that he would not make any concessions for the sake of peace with Israel.
In a speech in Ramallah on November 11, marking the tenth anniversary of the death of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, Abbas declared: “He who surrenders one grain of the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem is not one of us.”
This statement alone should be enough for Kerry and Western leaders to realize that it would be impossible to ask Abbas to make any concessions. Like Arafat, Abbas has become hostage to his own rhetoric. How can Abbas be expected to accept any deal that does not include 100% of his demands — in this instance, all territory captured by Israel in 1967?
Abbas himself knows that if he comes back with 97% or 98% of his demands, his people will either spit in is face or kill him, after accusing him of being a “defeatist” and “relinquishing Palestinian rights.”
This is precisely why Abbas chose to walk out of Kerry’s nine-month “peace process.” Realizing that Israel was not going to offer him 100% of his demands, Abbas preferred to abandon the peace talks last summer.
For Abbas, it is more convenient to be criticized by the U.S. and Israel than to be denounced by his own people for achieving a bad deal with Israel.
Ignoring these facts, Kerry tried to pressure Abbas into making concessions that would have turned the Palestinian Authority president into a “traitor” in the eyes of his people.
Instead of being honest with his people and telling them that peace requires painful concessions also on the part of Palestinians, and not only Israel, Abbas has chosen — ever since the collapse of Kerry’s “peace process” — to incite Palestinians against Israel.
Abbas has since held Israel responsible for the collapse of Kerry’s effort. Abbas has used both the media and fiery rhetoric to tell his people that there is no peace partner in Israel. He has also been telling his people that Israel’s only goal is to seize lands and carry out “ethnic cleansing”and “genocide” against Palestinians.
Abbas’s recent charges that Jewish settlers and extremists are “contaminating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem need to be seen in the context of the massive incitement campaign that escalated in the aftermath of the failure of Kerry’s “peace process.”
During the past few months, Abbas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have radicalized Palestinians to a point where it has become laughable even to talk about any peace process with Israel.
Abbas is well aware that his people will condemn him if he ever returns to the negotiating table with Israel. That is why he has now chosen a different strategy — to try to impose a solution with the help of the United Nations and the international community.
Abbas wants the international community and UN Security Council to give him what Israel cannot and will not offer him at the negotiating table.
The incitement campaign against Israel is reminiscent of the atmosphere that prevailed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip immediately after the botched Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. Then, Yasser Arafat also walked away from the table after realizing that Israel was not offering him all that he was asking for, namely a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.
Upon his return from Camp David, Arafat also unleashed a wave of incitement against Israel; eventually the incitement led to the eruption of the second intifada in September 2000.
Now Abbas is following in the footsteps of Arafat by stepping up his rhetorical attacks on Israel. This time, Hamas and other terror groups have joined Abbas’s incitement campaign by openly calling on Palestinians to use cars and knives to kill Jews in order to “defend” the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Abbas’s refusal to condemn the recent terror attacks on Israel may be attributed to two motives: fear of his people, and the belief that violence will force Israel to make far-reaching concessions. By refusing to denounce the attacks, and even praising the perpetrators as heroes and martyrs (as he did in the case of Mu’taz Hijazi, the east Jerusalem man who shot and wounded Jewish activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick), Abbas is indicating his tacit approval of the violence.
Not a single Palestinian Authority official, in fact, has denounced the wave of terror attacks on Israel. They, too, are afraid of being condemned by their people for denouncing “heroic operations” such as the stabbing murder of a 26-year-old woman or ramming a car into a three-month-old infant.
Victims of what official Palestinian Authority media organs call “heroic operations”: Left, Dalia Lamkus, 26, run over and then stabbed to death by a terrorist on Nov. 10. Right: Three-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, murdered on Oct. 23 when a terrorist rammed a car into her stroller. Several other victims were killed or injured in these attacks.
Abbas is hoping that the terror attacks will keep the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the top of the world’s agenda at a time when all eyes are turned toward the threat of the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq. He also knows very well that the people he has radicalized would turn against him if he dared to speak out against the killing of Jews.
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