The Tribal Update Presents the UN Choir and the Media’s Expert Assessment, Latma TV via YouTube, September 23, 2011
(A flash from the not very different past. The situation is little different today. I wish Latma-TV were still functioning. — DM).
Posted tagged ‘Palestinians’
White House “Champion” Blasts Muslims Who Talk to Any Pro-Israel Jews
December 7, 2016White House “Champion” Blasts Muslims Who Talk to Any Pro-Israel Jews, Investigative Project on Terrorism, December 7, 2016
Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour took to Twitter Nov. 22 with a quick, venting post: “You know what I can’t stand? Bitter people. That’s all.”
Sarsour spoke at the annual American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) conference three days later. Evidently, she can’t stand herself.
Sarsour, who describes herself as a “racial justice and civil rights activist,” lashed out at Jews who extended a hand of friendship and solidarity over concerns that increasing hostility toward Muslims in America might lead to draconian government action. And she lashed out at fellow Muslims who accepted the gesture and joined in a new inter-faith dialogue.
Why the bitterness?
The Jews at issue support the state of Israel, support its existence and its vitality. Sarsour wants none of that.
“We have limits to the type of friendships that we’re looking for right now,” Sarsour told the AMP conference, “and I want to be friends with those whom I know have been steadfast, courageous, have been standing up and protecting their own communities, those who have taken the risk to stand up and say – we are with the Palestinian people, we unequivocally support BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctioning Israel] when it comes to Palestinian human rights and have been attacked viciously by the very people who are telling you that they’re about to stand on the front line of the Muslim registry program. No thank you, sisters and brothers.”
It’s a message that fit right in at the AMP conference. AMP claims its “sole purpose is to educate the American public and media about issues related to Palestine and its rich cultural and historical heritage.” But in practice, the group has defended Hamas and its leaders admit they seek “to challenge the legitimacy of the State of Israel.”
Sarsour, a media darling honored by the Obama White House as a “Champion of Change” and a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders‘ failed Democratic presidential nomination campaign, seems to strike a different tone in public appearances. Her biography says she is “most known for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across issues, racial, ethnic and faith communities.” That clearly wasn’t her intent at the AMP conference.
She acknowledges there’s a rift among Islamists about how hard a line to draw in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet she was intent on pouring gasoline on the fire.
The “cracks in our community” are so wide, she said, they’re visible to “right-wing Zionists, Islamophobes, white supremacists.”
“They know where we’re divided. They know that we’re segregated,” she said. “So they, we could easily be targeted when we’re a fragmented community. But if we were a strong, united, steadfast community that stood up for each other first and foremost, you’d better believe that no opposition would ever be trying to take us down, because we’d be too big, too strong and too united.”
Some of her comments likely were directed at Anti-Defamation League chief Jonathan Greenblatt. Should a Trump administration create a registry for Muslims, an idea that does not seem to be on the table, Greenblatt recently pledged that “this proud Jew will register as Muslim.”
Sarsour not only rebuked the gesture, she cast Muslims who might respond more positively as sellouts of the Palestinian cause. Cooperation and solidarity gestures should only be reserved for those who share the depth of her hatred toward Israel, she said.
“I am tired of Muslims working towards acceptance and not respect of our communities. And I’m also tired of the Muslims willing to sell Palestine just for a little acceptance and nod from the white man and white power in these United States of America,” Sarsour said.
Sarsour, in the red hijab, poses with others at the White House Eid celebration.
Despite this extreme stance, Sarsour is a rising star among American Islamist activists. She has been welcomed to the White House at least 10 times during President Obama’s tenure, most recently in July for a celebration of the Muslim Eid holiday. Last year, a glowing New York Times profile described her as “a Brooklyn Homegirl in a Hijab.”
“But the most apparent thing about her voice is that it is exceedingly Brooklyn,” the story said. “She says ‘swag’ instead of ‘charisma.’ (‘Mr. B. has swag …) She calls her father, a Palestinian immigrant in his 60s, ‘Pops.’ Like the actress Rosie Perez in a hijab, Ms. Sarsour has perfected her delivery of the head-swaying ‘Oh no you dih-int’ and pronounces the word ‘Latino’ like, well, a Latino.”
Sarsour also says “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” and all-but accused the CIA of faking an attempted terrorist attack.
Those statements didn’t make the Times profile. And they didn’t prompt the Obama administration to reconsider the wisdom of elevating Sarsour’s clout with repeated White House access.
In February, just over a year after terrorists massacred the staff at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, saying they “avenged the Prophet,” Sarsour told a Council on American-Islamic Affairs (CAIR) banquet in Chicago that she would not stand with the victims. The magazine was “a bigot and a racist” for publishing caricatures of Islam’s prophet Muhammad, she said. The images served to “vilify my faith, dehumanize my community [and] demoralize my prophet.”
Building off Sarsour’s rejection of anyone who breaks bread with Zionists, former AMP New York President Raja Abdulhaq defined the BDS movement – not as a tool to lead to peaceful negotiations – but as way to break Israel into total surrender.
“The rights are non-negotiable. And that’s the whole point of BDS, is that we demand, we want to apply pressure,” Abdulhaq said, “not sit down in a negotiated setting and figure out what you can give up so that I can give up something in return, because what you’re essentially doing is you’re asking the other side – give up your illegality, stop your illegality and I will give up my rights. What kind of negotiation is that? No, I demand my rights, and you stop your illegality. And that’s the whole basis of BDS.”
Among the non-negotiable “rights” Abdulhaq says AMP and the BDS movement insist upon is the so-called “right of return” for Palestinians. That would lead to a huge influx of Palestinians into Israel, swamping the country demographically and ending its existence as a Jewish homeland.
That’s just fine with conference speaker Lamis Deek, an attorney and board memberfor CAIR’s New York chapter. She repeatedly described Israelis as “serial killers” intent on ethnic cleansing.
“There is a serial killer in our home,” Deek said. “And what do you do when you are confronted with a serial killer, right? You protect yourself. You protect your family. You scream for help. And you expect that when you scream for help from a serial killer everybody is gonna come to your aid, they’re gonna come protect and defend you. Right? You don’t expect somebody to intervene on behalf of the serial killer … and say ‘the serial killer has some rights, let us tell you about the rights the serial killer has’ as he begins to kill you. Right?”
Like Sarsour, Deek expressed frustration at Muslims who accept other viewpoints.
“Nothing has set back the Palestinian movement in the U.S. more than demands by people who want to work and focus their efforts on [Washington] D.C., by their demands that we tame our demands for Palestine,” she said.
Dawud Walid, CAIR’s Michigan director, echoed the message about Muslim groups who appear too accommodating. “If these organizations claim to represent the Muslim community,” he said, “then when we see them doing things that go outside of the mainstream of the (UI word) of our community, we need to hold them accountable, and if they continue to step outside of the boundaries, then we should withdraw our support and make that very public.”
Walid has acknowledged that his employer, which works hard to project an image as a civil rights organization, really sees itself as “defenders of the Palestinian struggle.”
Deek, meanwhile, spoke of the harm done to the Palestinian cause by the U.S.-brokered Oslo Accords. While that initiative may have given Palestinians autonomy, it came at the cost of unity, she said.
It’s not clear what she means. But, since 2006, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has governed the West Bank while Hamas controls Gaza.
Oslo also made it more difficult to engage in terrorism – what Deek calls “armed resistance.”
“Now armed resistance, self-defense, has been the only direct challenge to Zionist colonial expansion. Nothing else is a direct challenge,” she told the AMP conference. “Everything else is an indirect challenge, right? Pressure – economic pressure, diplomatic pressure. So this national united Palestinian body was able – by supporting the resistance – was able to be part of directly impacting and influencing Zionist policy.”
Advocating more Palestinian violence is consistent for an AMP gathering. The organization’s message never mentions peaceful co-existence. An Investigative Project on Terrorism investigation found connections between at least five AMP officials and speakers and the defunct Hamas support network called the “Palestine Committee.”
During the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, AMP’s then-National Campus Coordinator Taher Herzallah posted images of wounded Israelis, calling them “The most beautiful site (sic) in my eyes.” He defended indiscriminate Hamas rocket fire at Israeli civilian communities as “an audible cry for help” and “an act of resistance.”
Two clear messages emerged from the AMP conference. “Resistance” is better than renouncing violence and seeking peace. All Muslims who might disagree, even if they see eye-to-eye on other issues, are no longer welcome.
These extreme stands came from speakers who enjoy prominent political profiles and high-level contacts.
Sarsour is right about one thing. There is a rift in her community. She and her AMP panelists are the ones widening it.
The Real Illegal Settlements
December 5, 2016The Real Illegal Settlements
by Bassam Tawil
December 5, 2016 at 5:00 am
Source: The Real Illegal Settlements
- While construction in Jewish settlements of the West Bank and neighborhoods of Jerusalem has long been carried out within the frame of the law and in accordance with proper licenses issued by the relevant authorities, the Palestinian construction is illegal in every respect.
- The Palestinian goal is to create irreversible facts on the ground. The sheer enormity of the project raises the question: Who has been funding these massive cities-within-cities? And why? There is good reason to believe that the PLO and some Arabs and Muslims, and especially the European Union, are behind the Palestinian initiative.
- The Jewish outpost of Amona, home to 42 families, is currently the subject of fiery controversy both in Israel and in the international arena. Apparently, settlements are only a “major obstacle to peace” when they are constructed by Jews.
- The EU and some Islamic governments and organizations are paying for the construction of illegal Palestinian settlements, while demanding that Israel halt building new homes for Jewish families in Jerusalem neighborhoods or existing settlements in the West Bank.
- The hypocrisy and raw malice of the EU and the rest of the international community toward the issue of Israeli settlements is blindingly transparent. Yet we are also witnessing the hypocrisy of many in the Western mainstream media, who see with their own eyes the Palestinian settlements rising on every side of Jerusalem, but choose to report only about Jewish building.
As the international community continues to slam Israel for construction in Jewish settlement communities, Palestinians are quietly engaging in massive construction of entire neighborhoods in many parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem. In addition to overlooking the Palestinian building project, the West has clearly been neglecting a crucial difference between the two efforts: while the construction in the Jewish settlements of the West Bank and neighborhoods of Jerusalem has long been carried out within the frame of the law and in accordance with proper licenses issued by the relevant authorities, the Palestinian construction is illegal in every respect.
In this behind-the-scenes endeavor, which does not meet even the most minimum standards required by engineers, architects and housing planners, the Palestinian goal is to create irreversible facts on the ground.
A quick tour of the areas surrounding Jerusalem from the north, east and south easily exposes the colossal construction that is taking place there. In most cases, these high-rise buildings are slapped together without licenses or any adequate planning or safety concerns.
 An example of massive illegal Palestinian construction near Shufat and Anata, on the northeastern outskirts of Jerusalem. |
The Jewish outpost of Amona in the central West Bank, home to 42 families, is currently the subject of fiery controversy both in Israel and in the international arena. In 2006, the High Court of Israel ruled that the outpost is illegal under Israeli law because it lies on private Palestinian land. In 2014, the High Court ordered the government to evacuate and demolish the entire outpost within two years.
In Israel, as Amona demonstrates, no one is above the law. Israel boasts an independent judiciary system that is second to none.
Yet as the debate in Israel intensifies over the fate of Amona, the Palestinians are making a mockery of laws and building regulations by embarking on massive construction of illegal neighborhoods and buildings. Apparently, settlements are only a “major obstacle to peace” when they are constructed by Jews.
In recent years and continuing to the present, the Palestinians, with the aid of Western donors for whom only Jewish construction is anathema, are working night and day to create irreversible facts in the form of not just single-family houses, but masses of giant high-rise buildings. The sheer enormity of the project raises the question: Who has been funding these massive cities-within-cities? And why? There is good reason to believe that the PLO and some Arabs and Muslims, and especially the European Union are behind the Palestinian initiative.
Ironically, this has been taking place even when it means that the Palestinians have been stealing land from our own people.
The Palestinian building is taking place mostly in what is called Area C of the West Bank, which, under the terms of the Oslo Accords, is supposed to be under exclusive Israeli control. The building has also been mushrooming in many neighborhoods — even in entire villages — surrounding Jerusalem from the north, east and south, leaving the city with only one option: to expand towards the west, thereby building a giant collar of cement effectively to surround and choke off Jerusalem from the Jews.
Recently, entire Arab neighborhoods with crowded high-rises have shot up around Jerusalem. Only a handful of steps separate some of the buildings, and most lack proper sewage systems. Apartment prices range from $25,000 to $50,000 USD. These are ridiculous prices compared with the real costs of apartments in both Arab and Jewish (legal) neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Today, it is almost impossible to purchase a three-room apartment in the city for less than $250,000 USD.
The new neighborhoods are located in Kufr Akab, Samiramis, Kalandya, Beit Hanina, Shufat, Ras Khamis and Anata in the north of Jerusalem.
In the southern and eastern parts of the city, new neighborhoods have emerged with noticeable suddenness in Ras Al-Amoud, A-Tur, Al-Zaim, Jabal Mukaber, Um Tuba and Jabal Mukaber. These areas fall within the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem. However, failing to halt the illegal construction and leaving the city besieged from north, east and south, Jerusalem Municipality officials admit that Israel will have lost the war against illegal Palestinian construction unless immediate action is taken.
Alarmed by the ongoing illegal construction, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat recently took the unprecedented measure of petitioning the High Court to allow the city to demolish 14 illegally built structures in east Jerusalem.
Most importantly, there is no housing crisis for the Arab population; it is not an Arab housing crisis that is prompting this spree of illegal Palestinian construction. Rather, the goal is political: to show the world that Jerusalem is an Arab, and not a Jewish, city. By and large, the apartments remain empty: there is simply no real demand.
Who is behind the unprecedented wave of illegal construction? According to Arab residents of Jerusalem, many of the “contractors” are actually land-thieves and thugs who lay their hands on private Palestinian-owned land or on lands whose owners are living abroad. But they also point out that the EU, the PLO and some Arab and Islamic governments are funding the project.
“They spot an empty plot of land and quickly move in to seize control over it,” said a resident whose land was “confiscated” by the illegal contractors.
“They tell you if you don’t like it, go to court, knowing that by the time the legal procedures are over they would have succeeded in building another tall building and even selling some of the apartments.
“Many Arab land owners feel helpless. They tell us that it is their national duty to build as much as they can on any empty land, otherwise the Jews would be building there.”
Palestinians estimate that in the past few years they have managed to build more than 15,000 illegal housing units in areas surrounding Jerusalem as part of a plan to encircle the city. The construction continues to this moment, unabated. Partial funding comes from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and some Arab and Islamic countries These countries include Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and other oil-rich countries in the Gulf. However, the Palestinians continue to complain that the Arab and Islamic funding is below expectations.
In Area C, a stretch of land accounting for 60% of the West Bank, the European Union, which bitterly condemns construction in Jewish settlements as illegal, openly funds illegal construction carried out by Palestinians. The EU argues that its support for Palestinian construction falls under the category of “humanitarian relief” and is permissible under international law.
The EU’s real goal is to help the Palestinians create these irreversible facts on the ground ahead of any possible future peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel. It is aimed at facilitating the mission of the Palestinians to seize as much land as possible, even if that means funding illegal construction or providing mobile homes to Palestinian communities in this area.
In short, it is the EU and some Arabs and Muslims who are paying for the construction of illegal Palestinian settlements, while demanding that Israel halt building new homes for Jewish families in Jerusalem neighborhoods or existing settlements in the West Bank.
The hypocrisy and raw malice of the EU and the rest of the international community toward the issue of Israeli settlements is blindingly transparent. Yet we are also witnessing the hypocrisy of many in the Western mainstream media — those dozens of correspondents who see with their own eyes the Palestinian settlements rising on every side of Jerusalem, but choose to report only about Jewish building.
Forty-two Jewish families in Amona have the world riveted, but what does the world think about the Palestinian land-grab? It is time to call out this treachery, this illegality and this double-standard, and demand that the Palestinians also cease the construction of illegal settlements, which are designed with one aim in mind: to pre-determine the outcome of any future peace deal.
Bassam Tawil is based in the Middle East.
Trump speaks with “president” of Taiwan, harasses her sexually
December 3, 2016Trump speaks with “president” of Taiwan, harasses her sexually, Dan Miller’s Blog, December 3, 2016
(The views expressed in this article are those of Pajama Boy’s father and do not necessarily reflect my views, those of the other editors, or Warsclerotic. — DM)
This is a guest post by a well-known political commentator, the father of Pajama Boy. He is a true “Obama patriot,” whose views should matter little after mid-day on January 20th.
Here are the thoughts of President Reject Obama:
President Elect Donald Trump violated all known rules of common decency by accepting a telephone call from Taiwanese “President” Tsai Ing-wen without My permission. Indeed, Ms. Tsai did as well by placing the call without My permission. Obviously, I would not have granted permission because it was just a trick, intended to embarrass Me and My fundamentally transformed country.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Saturday the call between Taiwan’s president and Trump was “just a small trick by Taiwan,” according to Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV.
Both should be ashamed and both are on the wrong side of both history and herstory. I will continue to treat the renegade Chinese province of Taiwan as an outcast from the community of well-behaved nations, while reassuring Chinese President Xi Jinping of My continued fealty. He is My good friend, the powerful leader China — and indeed our entire climate change ravaged world — needs.
Taiwan is not even a country. As noted here,
The call is widely believed to be the first between a U.S. president or president-elect and a leader of Taiwan since 1979, when diplomatic relations between the two were cut off. China regards Taiwan, a nearly 14,000 square-mile island off its coast, as a renegade province which should be returned to China ever since Gen. Chiang Kai-shek fled mainland China to Taiwan in 1949. [Emphasis added.]
The U.S. adopted a “One China” policy to help facilitate diplomacy with Beijing in 1972, and President Jimmy Carter formally recognized Beijing as the sole government of China in 1978. The U.S. embassy in Taiwan’s capital, Taipei, was closed in 1979. [Emphasis added.]
Since Ms. Tsai is merely the “president” of a rogue province of China not recognized by America, she is a make-believe president and a mere peon. It should be beneath the dignity of even a pitiful excuse for a President Elect like Trump even to consider talking with her.
Moreover, it is my understanding that Trump may well have attempted to harass her sexually, just as he does every female he encounters. Since they had “only” a telephone conversation and were probably separated by thousands of miles, it is possible that he did not attempt to grab her pussy, as he would have done had it been within reach.
Nevertheless, Trump doubtless lusted after her and “committed adultery” in what passes for his heart.
It is my sincere hope that, for as long as I am your President, America will continue to look up to, greatly admire and, in every other way possible, kowtow to the glorious People’s Republic of China, her generous leaders and her happy industrious workers. Our own workers should look up to and emulate them with great admiration, rather than childishly disparaging them and the products of their wholesome industry.
Editor’s comments
Since Taiwan is not a “real country” recognized by America, but is instead merely an estranged province of the People’s Republic of China, with no legitimate president other than Chinese President Xi Jinping, what’s the big deal? Had Trump accepted a phone call from (the ghost of) Homer Tomlinson, the self-proclaimed King of the World, would it have been seen as catastrophic?
Oh well.
President Elect Trump is committed to unraveling unfair trade deals with China and helping American businesses to compete fairly with Chinese businesses. China won’t like it, but as Pajama Boy’s father remarked a few years ago, “elections have consequences.” If that entails selling Taiwan more than we presently do, so be it.
Though the leaders of the U.S. and Taiwan in the last few decades have not been in contact, the U.S. has sold the island nation with weapons that the Chinese have perceived as an illegal act according to international law. In 2015, the U.S. sold $1.83 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, which included anti-aircraft and anti-ship systems.
The more the merrier.
How about recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation, as we did until 1978 when President Carter withdrew recognition to appease China? Surely, Carter was not slighting the indigenous people of Taiwan. Was he?
“Taiwanese original inhabitants“) is the term commonly applied to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, who number more than 530,000 and constitute nearly 2.3% of the island‘s population. Recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on Taiwan for approximately 8,000 years before a major Hanimmigration began in the 17th century.[2]Taiwanese aborigines are Austronesian peoples, with linguistic and genetic ties to other Austronesian ethnic groups, which includes those of the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Oceania.[3][4] The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan. [Emphasis added.]
For centuries, Taiwan’s aboriginal inhabitants experienced economic competition and military conflict with a series of colonizing newcomers. Centralized government policies designed to foster language shift and cultural assimilation, as well as continued contact with the colonizers through trade, intermarriage and other intercultural processes, have resulted in varying degrees of language death and loss of original cultural identity. For example, of the approximately 26 known languages of the Taiwanese aborigines (collectively referred to as the Formosan languages), at least ten are now extinct, five are moribund,[5] and several are to some degree endangered. These languages are of unique historical significance, since most historical linguists consider Taiwan to be the original homeland of the Austronesian language family.[2] [Emphasis added]
Taiwan’s Austronesian speakers were formerly distributed over much of the island’s rugged central mountain range and were concentrated in villages along the alluvial plains. The bulk of contemporary Taiwanese aborigines now live in the mountains and in cities.
The indigenous peoples of Taiwan face economic and social barriers, including a high unemployment rate and substandard education. Since the early 1980s, many aboriginal groups have been actively seeking a higher degree of political self-determination and economic development.[6] The revival of ethnic pride is expressed in many ways by aborigines, including the incorporation of elements of their culture into commercially successful pop music. Efforts are under way in indigenous communities to revive traditional cultural practices and preserve their traditional languages. The Austronesian Cultural Festival in Taitung City is one means by which tribe members promote aboriginal culture. In addition, several aboriginal tribes have become extensively involved in the tourism and ecotourism industries with the goal of achieving increased economic self-reliance and preserving their culture.[7] [Emphasis added]
China’s dominion over Taiwan, and therefore over her indigenous people, seems likely to hasten their cultural genocide. Might that be why “The issue of an ethnic identity unconnected to the Asian mainland has become one thread in the discourse regarding the political status of Taiwan?” Where are the leftists, who loudly and routinely bemoan the ill-treatment of indigenous peoples elsewhere — except, of course, the indigenous Jews of Israel whom they seek to replace with Arabian Palestinians who want to eliminate them as part of their final solution to the “Jewish problem?”
The Israel-Palestinian impasse after Trump
December 1, 2016The Israel-Palestinian impasse after Trump, Israel National News, Dr. Mordechai Nisan, December 1, 2016
There will likely be a dramatic shift in American Middle East foreign policy free of Oriental enthusiasms, abstract paradigms of a new regional order, and State Department ‘Arabists’ who consider Zionism the root cause of the conflict. Donald Trump’s hard-nosed political realism and sympathetic attitude toward Israel will at long last set the record straight. His pre-election statements point to a fundamental change which acknowledges that Israel alone decides on its national interests, based on sacred values, geo-strategic environment, and accumulated experience.
***************************
Soon after the end of the June 1967 Six Day War, Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban met in New York with U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Eban was asked about Israel’s thinking on a future political settlement following her extraordinary military victory and territorial conquests. He responded that the Israeli government had decided on June 19 that in exchange for peace agreements, Israel would return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and the Golan Heights to Syria, while considering granting autonomy to the Arab population in the ‘West Bank’.
Rusk, Eban later recorded in his autobiography, could hardly believe what he was saying and responded that “he did not know of any case in modern history where a country, which had been attacked and emerged victorious, put forward such daring proposals so soon after.” President Johnson considered that Israel’s position was “constructive;” while Gideon Rafael, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, later wrote that the Secretary of State was impressed by Israeli “moderation.”
When Donald Trump will meet with Binyamin Netanyahu, it is reasonable to assume that the President will ask the Israeli Prime Minister – fifty years after the Rusk-Eban exchange – how he envisions a political resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians.
***
After the liberation of Judea and Samaria from Jordanian rule, political controversy engulfed the Israelis into interminable division. Historically, the political Center-Left was not always, as it later evolved, opposed to Jewish settlement and Israeli territorial retention.
In May 1973 Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan said in a BBC TV interview: “Israel should remain for eternity and until the end of time in the West Bank…if Palestinians didn’t like this, they could go and establish themselves in an Arab country.” Prime Minister Golda Meir was decisive in her autobiography: “Obviously, no Israeli government could ever obligate itself to a permanent banning of Jews from any part of the Holy Land.”
Since the dramatic Likud victory in 1977, Israel’s political Left has withered. Their last and distant election victory was in 1999, having cast aside principles endorsed by Dayan and Meir and which later became the hallmark of patriotism and realism for Begin, Shamir, and Netanyahu.
***
n February 1945, toward the end of the Second World War, President Roosevelt assured King Abdul Aziz al-Saud “that he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people.” In 2017 President Trump can assure Prime Minister Netanyahu that he would do nothing to assist the Arabs against the Jews and would make no move hostile to the Israeli people.
This policy position will clear the political slate by burying the delusional Oslo Accords which failed to elicit mutual trust and reconciliation, cancelling the phony peace process which is all one-sided for the Palestinians, and invalidating the two-state solution whose complexity far surpasses its simple appellation. The Palestinians refuse to recognize the Jewish state, claiming all of Palestine for themselves.
Let us be clear on what we know about sociology, religion, and politics in Palestinian culture. A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would bear the defective features of harrowing clan tribalism, Islamic fanaticism, and simmering violence. This rogue and irredentist state would be a disaster for Arab autonomy – but not a Palestinian state – in Judea and Samaria is the maximum concession that Israel can offer without endangering its safety.
There will likely be a dramatic shift in American Middle East foreign policy free of Oriental enthusiasms, abstract paradigms of a new regional order, and State Department ‘Arabists’ who consider Zionism the root cause of the conflict. Donald Trump’s hard-nosed political realism and sympathetic attitude toward Israel will at long last set the record straight. His pre-election statements point to a fundamental change which acknowledges that Israel alone decides on its national interests, based on sacred values, geo-strategic environment, and accumulated experience.
Presidential candidate Donald Trump declared to a large and enthusiastic AIPAC audience on March 21, 2016: ‘the days of treating Israel as a second-class citizen will end on day one’ [following his inauguration].
***
Six components shape a political solution for the intractable conflict in the Land. Let us transcend sloganeering – like “territories for peace” – and scale the high ground for a new, radical, and sensible approach. With the encouragement and resources of Washington, a new Israeli plan may actually work.
Here is the six-point plan:
A/1: Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is the national and civilian expression of a biblical promise to the patriarch Abraham – the Land of Israel belongs to the ancient Jewish people.
A/2: Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria is the only political condition that can provide the country with minimum strategic depth and topographical command, securing itself from military and security threats and perils.
B/1: Arab autonomy – but not a Palestinian state – in Judea and Samaria is the maximum concession that Israel can offer without endangering its safety.
B/2: Arab migration eastward to Jordan should be encouraged and financed in shaping new demographic and political realities in the spirit of the formula: the Palestinians east of the Jordan River and only Israel west of the river.
C/1: UNRWA, an international trough supplying resources for Palestinian terrorism and hateful propaganda against Israel, having routinized Palestinians’ dependency and subservience as wards of global exploitation must be shut down by America cancelling its financial support.
C/2: Palestinian refugees from 1948 – few of whom are still alive and whose progeny incongruously fills the refugee rolls – should be freed from their collective humiliation and squalor, as in Lebanon, through resettlement in Jordan, Iraq, South America, West Africa, and elsewhere.
The broad ramifications of this ABC plan will redraw the political and demographic map; out of the box, we can finally think again.
***
Trump launched a paradigm shift in America; can Netanyahu, with Trump’s support, launch his in Israel?
Donald Trump challenged, ridiculed, and vilified, the icons of Political Correctness: regarding the environment, government, globalization, trade, Islam, race and immigration.
The march of political folly must end. The unfolding circumstances can now sustain a historic paradigm shift on the century-old conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Holy Land.
Sent to Arutz Sheva by the writer, also appeared on Frontpage.com.
The UN’s Palestine Language
November 30, 2016The UN’s Palestine Language, Gatestone Institute, A.J. Caschetta, November 30, 2016
For decades, UN agencies have slandered the Jewish state, most recently with the April 2016 accusation that it has been “planting Jewish fake graves” in Palestinian territory, and with UNESCO declaring last year that the ancient Jewish Biblical sites Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs are actually Muslim holy sites, and last month that the Temple Mount, where the Jewish Temples were destroyed in 587 BCE and 70 CE, is an Islamic site with no connection to Judaism.
West Bank: This territory was for millennia called Judea and Samaria. After the 1948 War of Independence, Transjordan annexed it, renamed it the “West Bank,” and occupied it for nearly two decades. In the Six Day War, after Jordan attacked Israel, Israel entered the territory and administered it until the Oslo Accords era, when Israel turned over much of the area to the Palestinian Authority.
Occupation: When it comes to Israel, the UN is obsessed with the word “occupation.” A recent Wall Street Journal article documents 530 General Assembly references to Israel as an “occupying power” versus zero for Indonesia (East Timor), Turkey (Cyprus), Russia (Georgia, Crimea), Morocco (Western Sahara), Vietnam (Cambodia), Armenia (Azerbaijan), Pakistan (Kashmir), or China (Tibet). Saying that Jews are “occupying” Judea is as nonsensical as saying Arabs are “occupying” Arabia or Gauls are “occupying” France.
Settlement: The UN uses the term to insinuate Israeli theft of “Palestine.” The Obama administration eagerly embraced this terminology. If there is an occupying force in Gaza, it is Hamas. The West Bank is “disputed territories” to anyone claiming a modicum of neutrality. As Elliot Abrams put it, “the term ‘settlement’ loses meaning when applied to Jews building homes in their nation’s capital city.”
US President-elect Donald Trump won the White House promising to reform our dysfunctional government. But will he also stand up to the even more dysfunctional United Nations?
As the Trump campaign emphasized in a position paper released November 2, the UN has long displayed “enormous anti-Israel bias.” For decades, UN agencies have slandered the Jewish state, most recently with the April 2016 accusation that it has been “planting Jewish fake graves” in Palestinian territory, and with UNESCO declaring last year that the ancient Jewish Biblical sites Rachel’s Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs are actually Muslim holy sites, and last month that the Temple Mount, where the First and Second Jewish Temples were destroyed in 587 BCE and 70 CE, is an Islamic site with no connection to Judaism. On the day America elected a new president, the UN adopted ten new resolutions against Israel.
UNESCO last year declared ancient Jewish Biblical sites to actually be Muslim holy sites: the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron (left) as the “Ibrahimi Mosque,” and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem (right) as the “Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque.” (Images source: Wikimedia Commons)
The UN’s greatest achievements against the Jewish state have been rhetorical. By controlling the language of the Palestinian-Israel conflict, the UN has skewed the narrative falsely against Israel. This fabricated language is, in turn, absorbed and perpetuated by the media (both old and new), academics, politicians, and pop culture figures such as Roger Waters, further tainting the world’s perception of the conflict.
UN documents regularly use the term “occupied Palestine” and refer to “occupied Palestinian territory” (especially the “West Bank”) being stolen by Jewish “settlement activity.” All four UN terms — “Palestine,” “occupation,” “West Bank,” and “settlement” — are misleading.
Palestine: While UN documents regularly refer to “Palestine” and “the State of Palestine,” there is, in fact, no state of Palestine. As David Bukay shows “there has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians at any time in history.” Until recently there have never been a people nor a culture known as “Palestinian” distinct from “Arab.” The Arabs who lived in UN Mandated Palestine turned down statehood in 1947 by rejecting UN Resolution 181. In 1974 the UN recognized the PLO, a terrorist organization, as the official representative of the Palestinian people, paving the way for its emergence from the Oslo peace process under the guise of the Palestinian Authority (PA). In 2000, the PA turned down yet another offer of statehood because the offer did not recognize the “right of return” for millions of descendants of those displaced in 1948 to relocate to within Israel — a population transfer that would eliminate the existence of a Jewish state by demographic means. In 2012, the UN General Assembly upgraded the PA/PLO government to “Non-member Observer State”; UN rules dictate that new member states can only be created by the Security Council.
West Bank: The term “West Bank” is also a misnomer. In fact, this territory was for millennia called Judea and Samaria. After the 1948 War of Independence, Transjordan (now known as the Kingdom of Jordan) annexed it, renamed it the “West Bank,” and occupied it for nearly two decades. In the Six Day War, after Jordan attacked Israel, Israel entered the territory and administered it until the Oslo Accords era; then it turned over much of the area to the Palestinian Authority. The final borders of a Palestinian state were left contingent upon Palestinian progress in ending terrorism and bilateral negotiations over presumed land swaps.
Occupation: When it comes to Israel, the UN is obsessed with the word “occupation.” A recent Wall Street Journal article documents 530 General Assembly references to Israel as an “occupying power” versus zero for Indonesia (East Timor), Turkey (Cyprus), Russia (Georgia, Crimea), Morocco (Western Sahara), Vietnam (Cambodia), Armenia (Azerbaijan), Pakistan (Kashmir), or China (Tibet). UNESCO’s “Occupied Palestine” document uses the phrase “Israel, the occupying Power” thirteen times.
Most Palestinians in Judea and Samaria live under the governance of the Palestinian Authority. Referring to this territory as the “occupied West Bank,” is an unnecessary concession to the UN narrative. Saying that Jews are “occupying” Judea is as nonsensical as saying Arabs are “occupying” Arabia or Gauls are “occupying” France. Nevertheless many media sources (Washington Post, New York Times) use this term reflexively. New-media sources often take it a step farther. Any Google search combining the words “occupation” and “Israel” leads to a “People Also Ask” drop-down offering the following: “At the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict today lies the question of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since the war of 1967, which include the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.” Somehow Google missed the fact there have not been Israelis in Gaza since 2005.
Settlement: The term “settlement” evokes imagery of white European settlers encroaching on the ancestral territories of red, brown and black peoples, connoting the moral baggage of colonialism. The UN uses the term to insinuate Israeli theft of “Palestine.” In truth, many of the “West Bank settlers” bemoaned by the UN are not pioneers from other lands but infants, new members of growing families in long-established Jewish neighborhoods.
The Obama administration eagerly embraced this terminology. On July 27, Obama State Department spokesman John Kirby issued a statement that reads as though it were written at the UN. The document, entitled “Recent Israeli Settlement Announcements,” suggests that Obama’s State Department has come around to the UN’s way of thinking, especially in “strongly condemning” Israel for its “settlement activity” which it pronounces “corrosive to the cause of peace.”
Now that South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has been chosen as the Trump administration’s Ambassador to the UN, it will be up to her to challenge the UN’s ahistorical, slanted Palestine thinking. If there is an occupying force in Gaza, it is Hamas. What Israelis call Judea and Samaria, and Palestinians call the West Bank, are “disputed territories” to anyone claiming a modicum of neutrality. As Elliot Abrams put it, “the term ‘settlement’ loses meaning when applied to Jews building homes in their nation’s capital city.”
Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem
November 30, 2016Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, Israel National News, Dr. Max Singer, November 30, 2016
(Please see also, Jimmy Carter wants UN to impose a Palestinian state by fiat, with US recognition. — DM)
The US State Department, which has always opposed moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, understands very well that any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians will leave at least western Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and part of sovereign Israel. So why will the State Department nevertheless advise President-Elect Donald Trump not to fulfill his promise to move the embassy?
Moving the embassy to Israel’s actual capital would provoke Arab anger at the US and lead to protests that might turn violent. The foreign policy establishment wishes to prevent this result and protect America’s status as an “honest broker.” It therefore continues to insist that because Jerusalem’s ultimate status can only be determined by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and that it would be wrong for the US to “prejudge” the outcome by acting on the truth that Israel’s capital is Jerusalem.
This is a perfect example of the kind of politically-correct establishment pettifogging that Trump campaigned against. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a low-cost action that he could take as soon as he is inaugurated, and one of the easiest and quickest changes in policy that he could implement. The new US consulate in Jerusalem was built with security features that would be needed for an embassy, so the move could be started almost immediately, without any prejudice to the Palestinian claim to eastern Jerusalem.
The State Department’s insistence on the diplomatic fiction that none of Jerusalem is part of Israel helps preserve the Palestinian hope that, someday, Israel will be forced to give up its capital and will be destroyed as the independent, democratic Jewish state.
That Palestinian hope is the main obstacle to peace. The Palestinians can only make peace when their community – and perhaps the Arab world of which it is a part – comes to understand that international pressure will never force Israel to acquiesce in its own destruction. One of the best ways the US can demonstrate that it will never consent to the Palestinian destruction of Israel is for Washington to stop ignoring blatant Palestinian lies that work against peace.
There is another way that an American truth-telling strategy could encourage peace. Palestinian leadership now tells its people – and most of them believe – that compromise with Israel would be immoral because Israel is a colonial invader that stole Palestinian land by force. By that argument, Israel has no moral claim to any of the land, and any concession to it would be dishonorable.
But Israel is descended from Jewish kingdoms that ruled parts of the land for centuries in ancient times. It too has a traditional base for moral claims to the territory (in addition to legal claims from the League of Nations mandate). If the Palestinians recognized this truth, they would see that compromise between the two groups, each of which has valid claims to the land, could be an honorable way to end the dispute and not a cowardly yielding to force.
To undermine this moral basis for compromise with Israel, Palestinian leadership flatly denies any ancient Jewish connection to the land. They claim, for example, that there never was a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount from which Jesus could have chased the money-changers. Yet their own history belies this claim. In 1929, the Supreme Moslem Council in Jerusalem, in its guide to the Mount, wrote: “[The Temple Mount’s] identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”
The US may not be able to induce the Palestinian Authority to stop inciting its constituents and teaching its children to hate Israel. But there are ways in which the US can expose and eventually defeat Palestinian lies that work against peace; ways that do not require getting agreement from anyone.
Exploring these new approaches would constitute a striking change in diplomatic direction. There are many examples of the West rejecting truth on behalf of the Palestinians and their Arab supporters. For example, some Western countries went along with the recent denial by UNESCO of any ancient Jewish connection to the land of Israel. The US politely ignores the Palestinian lie that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount.
If the US consistently tells the truth about the ancient Jewish presence in Palestine, and publicly refuses to swallow the Palestinians’ false and anti-peace denials of history, the Palestinian leadership will not for long be able to keep the truth from their people, or at least from the large educated class.
The US has followed a policy of avoiding truths that are painful or embarrassing to the Arabs for at least 50 years. It hasn’t worked. Maybe it is time to try the strategy of telling the truth. Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, in accordance with the long-standing congressional position, would be a good way for President Trump to make a start on a truth-telling strategy – as well as to fulfill a campaign promise.
Palestinians: The ‘Wall of Shame’
November 28, 2016Palestinians: The ‘Wall of Shame’, Gatestone Institute, Khaled Abu Toameh, November 28, 2016
“The equation facing the Palestinian factions is clear: Hand over the terrorists and there will be no wall. The Palestinians have proven that they are unable to take security matters into their own hands in this camp.” — Lebanese security official.
These anti-Palestinian practices are regularly ignored by the international community, including mainstream media and human rights organizations, whose obsession with Israel blinds them to Arab injustice. A story without an anti-Israel angle is not a story, as far as they are concerned
Typically, Western journalists and human rights activists do not even bother to report or document cases of Arab mistreatment of Arabs. This abandonment of professional standards is why apartheid laws targeting Palestinians in several Arab countries are still unknown to the international community.
The Lebanese authorities also say that they decided to build the wall after discovering several tunnels in the vicinity of Ain al-Hilweh, used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into and out of the camp.
The new wall will not solve the real problem — namely the failure to absorb the refugees and grant them citizenship. Palestinians living in Arab countries are denied citizenship (with the exception of Jordan) and a host of basic rights.
Now is the time for the international community to apply pressure to the Arab countries to start helping their Palestinian brothers by improving their living conditions and incorporating them into these countries.
The refugee problem will end the day their leaders stop lying to them and confront them with the truth, basically that there will be no “right of return” and that the time has come for them to move on with their lives
It is no secret that Arab countries have long mistreated their Palestinian brothers and sisters, governing them with inhumane laws and imposing severe restrictions on their public freedoms and basic rights. Building a wall around a Palestinian community to prevent terrorists from entering or leaving, however, has raised the bar on such infringements.
This is precisely what is happening in Lebanon these days. The construction of a security wall around Ain al-Hilweh, the largest Palestinian refugee camp (with a population of nearly 120,000), has drawn sharp criticism from Palestinians and revived memories of the abuse they regularly receive at the hands of their Arab brethren.
The Lebanese authorities say the Palestinians have left them no choice but to build the controversial concrete wall. The Palestinians, they say, refuse to cooperate against terrorists who have established bases within their camps. Yet that problem raises the question: “What has Lebanon done in the past half-century or so to help the Palestinians who fled to that country?” The answer: “Nothing.”
In fact, among all Arab countries, Lebanon has been arguably the worst in its treatment of the Palestinians. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are denied access to adequate housing and certain categories of employment. According to Amnesty International: “Over half of Palestinian refugees live in decaying and chronically overcrowded camps and discriminatory practices are permitted under personal status laws and nationality laws.”
These anti-Palestinian practices are regularly ignored by the international community, including the mainstream media and human rights organizations, whose obsession with Israel blinds them to Arab injustice. While, every now and then, an organization does publish a report on the misery endured by Palestinians in Arab countries, these bodies rarely follow up on their work, thus creating the impression that they are doing so only for the sake of protocol.
As such, the plight of the Palestinians in many Arab countries continues to be a taboo, as far as the international community is concerned. Typically, Western journalists and human rights activists do not even bother to report or document cases of Arab mistreatment of Arabs. This abandonment of professional standards is why apartheid laws targeting Palestinians in several Arab countries are still unknown to the international community. Even when Western journalists and human rights advocates do hear about these violations, they prefer to look the other way. A story without an anti-Israel angle is not a story, as far as they are concerned.
So what is going on in Lebanon, and why are so many Palestinians furious with the Lebanese authorities?
Until a few years ago, the population of Ain al-Hilweh camp was 70,000. But the influx of refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria, since 2011, has increased the camp population to nearly 120,000. It turns out that many of these new “refugees” are actually terrorists fleeing from Syria and Iraq.
A street celebration in Lebanon’s Ain al-Hilweh camp, July 2015. (Image source: Geneva Call/Flickr)
Ain al-Hilweh, like most of the camps in Lebanon, has always been a major headache for the Lebanon. It seems, however, that the Lebanese government has had enough.
For years, the Lebanese authorities, for whom the camp is “off-limits,” have been trying, unsuccessfully, to clean the camp of its hundreds of terrorists.
Lebanese security forces steer clear of the refugee camps in an attempt to avoid friction with the Palestinians living there. This evasion has allowed the camps to become hotbeds for various jihadi groups and terrorists who pose a threat not only to the national security of Lebanon, but to Palestinians themselves and neighboring Arab countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Syria (not to mention Israel).
Alarmed by this heightened threat, the Lebanese authorities recently began building a concrete wall around Ain al-Hilweh, sparking a wave of denunciations from Palestinians. The Palestinians claim that the new wall, which will be completed in 15 months, will turn the camp into a big open-air prison. They refer to it as the “Wall of Shame.” Their main argument is that it is disgraceful that any Arab country would build a wall surrounding a refugee camp at a time when Palestinians are asking the world to condemn Israel for building a security fence to prevent terror attacks against Israelis from the West Bank.
Camp residents claim that the Lebanese authorities have misled them concerning the construction of the wall. According to the residents, the authorities led them to believe that it was to be a small fence on the outskirts of parts of the camp and not a massive concrete wall surrounding the camp.
The Lebanese security authorities have chosen to call the new barrier the “Wall of Protection” — stressing that it is mainly intended to prevent terror attacks against Lebanon and stop the camps from becoming bases for terrorists and criminals. The authorities say that if anyone is to blame for the construction of the wall, it is the Palestinians themselves, who have refused to cooperate with the Lebanese government against the terrorists. “The goal is to prevent terrorists from infiltrating the camp,” explained a Lebanese security official. “The equation facing the Palestinian factions is clear: Hand over the terrorists and there will be no wall. The Palestinians have proven that they are unable to take security matters into their own hands in this camp.”
The Lebanese authorities also say that they decided to build the wall after discovering several smuggling tunnels in the vicinity of Ain al-Hilweh. These tunnels, they say, are being used to smuggle weapons and terrorists into and out of the camp.
Representatives of Ain al-Hilweh and other Palestinians have been holding marathon meetings with Lebanese government officials in the past few weeks to persuade them to halt the construction of the wall. The Palestinians in Ain al-Hilweh are now threatening that if the Lebanese government does not cancel the project, they will seek the intervention of other Arab, and also Western, countries, as well as the United Nations.
Notably, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership in the West Bank has not joined in the efforts to persuade the Lebanese government to drop the idea of building a wall around the camp. This avoidance probably springs from the PA leadership and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, being well aware that Ain al-Hilweh and other refugee camps in Lebanon have fallen into the hands of their enemies, namely Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.
The “Wall of Shame” appears particularly to bother Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. Last week, he telephoned a number of Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, to warn about the consequences of the construction of the wall. Mashaal, who is based in Qatar and enjoys a luxurious life most Palestinians can barely dream of, urged the Lebanese government to halt construction if the wall and said that the wall jeopardized the lives of Palestinian refugees and would have “negative repercussions.”
Hamas’s spokesman in Lebanon, Ra’fat Murra, dismissed Lebanon’s security concerns for building the wall. He warned that the wall would turn the camp into an isolated enclave and exacerbate tensions between Palestinians and Lebanese. Murra, however, expressed readiness to cooperate with the Lebanese authorities in apprehending and handing over wanted terrorists who had found shelter inside Ain al-Hilweh.
Protests against the wall reached their peak when hundreds of Palestinians (and some Lebanese) took to the streets of the nearby city Sidon, in southern Lebanon, calling on the government to stop construction immediately. The protesters warned that the wall would further increase tensions between Palestinians and Lebanese, and further reduce the quality of life for the camp residents.
Lebanon may be justified in building a security wall around the Palestinian refugee camp. Without a doubt, Ain al-Hilweh and other camps have become hubs for terror groups and criminals, and Lebanon has every right to combat terrorism. Yet, Lebanon needs to come up with ways to assimilate, rather than alienate, the Palestinians. Furthermore, this is a problem that extends beyond Lebanon’s borders. The same applies to the camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syria and Jordan.
The continued mistreatment of Palestinians at the hands of Lebanon and other Arab countries is totally unjustified. The new wall, complete with watchtowers, that is being erected around Ain al-Hilweh may stop some terrorists from infiltrating the camp, but it will not solve the real problem — namely the failure to absorb the refugees and grant them citizenship. In point of fact, Palestinians living in Arab countries are denied citizenship (with the exception of Jordan) and a host of basic rights.
Now is the time for the international community to apply pressure to the Arab countries to start helping their Palestinian brothers by improving their living conditions and incorporating them into these countries. Holding Palestinians in refugee camps for more than six decades is deadly counterproductive. The camps become sanctuaries for terrorists who pose a threat to the national security and stability in these Arab countries. There is no reason why a Palestinian living in Lebanon or Egypt or Kuwait should be banned from purchasing his or her own home.
Moreover, Arab states’ lies concerning the return of refugees to former homes inside of Israel, so long a staple fed to the refugees, have far outlived their usefulness. The refugee problem will end on the day their leaders stop lying to them and confront them with the truth, basically that there will be no “right of return” and that the time has come for them to move on with their lives.
If the lies do not end, the day will come when these countries will be forced to place all the refugees behind walls and fences — a move not likely to enhance stability in these countries. Ain al-Hilweh should serve as a wake-up call to all those Arabs who continue to subject Palestinians to apartheid laws and practices.
Live-Blog: Israel Battles #PyroTerrorism:
November 24, 2016JewishPress.com is blogging the efforts of Israel’s firefighters and security personnel battling pyroterrorists.
By: Hana Levi Julian
Published: November 24th, 2016
Romema, Haifa, in flames
Photo Credit: Fire and Rescue coastal district Spokesperson’s office
Jewishpress.com is blogging the efforts of Israel’s firefighters and security forces as they battle against the flames of pyroterrorism across the country.
Arabs have been caught and arrested in multiple locations setting fires.
6:52 PM Fire in woods near Ein Hod
6::49 PM Firefighter evacuated from Neve Ilan, Lightly injured.
6:49 PM Keren Kayemet looking for volunteers with 4x4s to help look for fires. Call Meir Tzafriri 053-850-0936 if you can volunteer.
6:47 PM View from a helicopter above the Neve Ilan area
6:38 PM Fire near Beit Safafa (Jerusalem)
6:04 PM Pre-arson setup found in Derech Karmit in Jerusalem.
5:57 Fire in woods near Nirit, houses on fire. Evacuations have begun.
HAIFA IS BURNING
November 24, 2016By: David Israel Published:
November 24th, 2016
Source: HAIFA IS BURNING | David Israel | Thursday, November 24, 2016 | JewishPress.com
Romema, Haifa, in flames
Photo Credit: Fire and Rescue coastal district Spokesperson’s office
Haifa police are now certain the fires that broke out throughout the city on Thursday morning were set by arsonists, as one of the fires appears to have been set just outside a fire station in the city – the idea being to delay the response of firefighting trucks to alarms.
“We identified an arson hotspot near the fire station and others in a few additional hotspots,” Acting Commissioner for the National Firefighting Services Shimon Ben-Ner told Walla. Ben-Ner believes this was part of an effort to paralyze the firefighting services in Haifa.
The wave of fires raging across Israel has reached its fourth day as several neighborhoods in Haifa, Israel’s third largest city, are being evacuated: Neot Sapir, Ramat Hen, Ramat Almogi, Ramat Ben-Gurion, Ahuza, Merkaz Horev, Romema, Ramat Eshkol, Begin, Ramat Golda and Neot Peres. Residents are being removed from homes, schools and kindergartens to the Auditorium in Carmel Center, the Bat Galim JCC and the Kiryat Eliezer Stadium. So far nine have been reported hurt mildly and one in fair condition.
Firefighting planes and more than 50 teams are on the scene in Haifa, and the public is urged to avoid drive to or through the coastal city. Homeland Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Thursday morning told Army Radio he expects the fires to continue to next week due to the strong winds.
Police suspect that some of the fires throughout the country have been the work of arsonists, although police believe the initial fires were not man made and the arsonists joined the game later.
Yet another fire broke out in an open area in Haifa, near the Paz bridge, which connects highway 4 to downtown. The fire spread quickly in the thorny bushes of the open field, driven by strong winds. Police reported two were lightly injured from smoke inhalation. Haifa University was evacuated. Rt. 22 was closed.
The fire in an open field near the Hadera Orot Rabin power station is in the process of getting under control. Orot Rabin is Israel’s largest power station whose 2,590 MW representing about 19% of the Israel Electric Corporation’s total generation capacity.
Haifa is burning
David Israel
About the Author: David writes news at JewishPress.com.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments