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Palestinians, Mother of Terrorist, Celebrate Slaughter of Jewish Family

July 24, 2017

Palestinians, Mother of Terrorist, Celebrate Slaughter of Jewish Family, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, July 24, 2017

(Another good opportunity for an American veto at the UN Security Council. — DM)

The United Nations Security Council is meeting in closed session Monday morning to discuss the crisis. Sweden, Egypt and France requested the special meeting. None of these countries have supported Israel in dealing with the ever present threat of Palestinian terrorism. They have bought into the Palestinians’ victimhood narrative.

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A Palestinian mother extolled her 19-year old son’s “accomplishment” in the name of Allah. She exclaimed:  “Praise Allah. I am proud of my son. May Allah be pleased with him.” The mother was not celebrating her son’s graduation, new job, marriage, fatherhood or some other life-affirming event. Rather, she was celebrating the deaths that her terrorist offspring, Omar al-Abed, brought to a Jewish family on July 21st.  The family was about to sit down for a Sabbath dinner and to celebrate the birth of a grandson that same day when the Palestinian terrorist prodigy invaded the family’s home. Wielding a knife, he proceeded to kill a grandfather, his daughter and his son, and to seriously wound the grandmother. The massacre ended only after a neighbor, who belongs to an elite IDF unit and was home on leave, heard cries for help from the house and shot the terrorist. Al-Abed was eventually handcuffed and taken to a hospital for treatment of his wounds.  

The terrorist’s mother was joined in her celebration by Palestinians dancing in the street in Gaza. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh reportedly phoned Omar al-Abed’s father to congratulate him for what his son had done to bring “pride to the nation.” 

The trigger for this latest spurt of violence was said to be Israel’s decision to install metal detectors at the entrances leading to the Temple Mount. Israel took this action in response to the killings by terrorists on July 14th of two Israeli police officers guarding the holy site. The murders were carried out by Arab Israeli citizens who used guns previously smuggled into the compound. Israel installed metal detectors to prevent any further smuggling of arms.

Palestinian violence has been spreading since then, resulting in the deaths of four Palestinian rioters in confrontations with Israeli security forces trying to restore calm.

The spiraling violence is being spurred on by Muslim religious leaders and Palestinian officials claiming that Israel’s security actions were defiling the Al Aqsa mosque situated on the Temple Mount. Omar al-Abed picked up on this theme in the “will” he posted on Facebook three hours before his cowardly attack. He said he was acting against “the sons of apes and pigs who defile Al Aqsa.” Hoping for martyrdom, he posted: “I will go to heaven. How sweet death is for the sake of God, his prophet and for Al-Aqsa mosque.” The 19-year old terrorist, who is the apple of his mother’s eye, did not get his wish and will now have to answer for his crimes. No doubt, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will reward the terrorist’s family with a generous stipend while he remains in Israeli custody. That’s the way Abbas operates.

After first mouthing an insincere condemnation of the murderous attack on the police guarding the Temple Mount, Abbas has exploited the situation ever since. He announced that he was going to suspend all contacts with Israel until the metal detectors were removed. Abbas reached out to the United States and the so-called “international community” to pressure Israel into cancelling its heightened security measures. He reportedly said that unless Israel backed down, tensions over access to the holy site could spiral out of control. The United Nations Security Council is meeting in closed session Monday morning to discuss the crisis. Sweden, Egypt and France requested the special meeting. None of these countries have supported Israel in dealing with the ever present threat of Palestinian terrorism. They have bought into the Palestinians’ victimhood narrative.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has been holding firm so far on its latest security measures. Tzachi Hanegbi, the minister for regional development and a senior member of the ruling Likud party, told Army Radio: “They (metal detectors) will remain. The murderers will never tell us how to search the murderers. If they (Palestinians) do not want to enter the mosque, then let them not enter the mosque.”

However, there is some division within the Israeli government on the utility of the metal detectors. Senior security officials have reportedly warned that the potential danger the metal detectors may pose in being used as a pretext for widespread violence may outweigh their usefulness. Thus, the government could be preparing a way to replace the metal detectors with a less controversial alternative. Israel has begun installing sophisticated security cameras at one of the entrances. While security officials have told Israeli media that the cameras are meant to complement the metal detectors, not replace them, the cameras may provide the Israeli government with a face saving way to defuse the immediate crisis. Prime Minister Netanyahu hinted as much when he said at his weekly cabinet meeting, “The only thing we want is to ensure no one can again take weapons in and carry out another attack. We’re willing to examine alternatives to the metal detectors, so long as the alternative ensures the prevention of the next attack.”

However, it is unlikely that any alternative security measure the Israelis institute will quell the rising level of violence. Indeed, it could have the opposite effect. Already, Abbas is said to be protesting the installation of the cameras. Only the Palestinians have the right to determine what security measures are appropriate outside the entrance to the site of their mosque, he said on Sunday. Moreover, some Muslim religious leaders may argue that photographing of people and other living animate moving beings is forbidden in Islam. They would likely rail against the “Zionist infidel occupiers” taking pictures of Muslim worshippers entering the “sacred” site of a mosque over which the Palestinians claim exclusive sovereignty.

The Palestinian grand mufti, the acting Palestinian chief justice and the Jordanian-sponsored Waqf religious trust issued a no-compromise joint statement:

“We stress our absolute rejection of the electronic gates, and of all measures by the Occupation (Israel) that would change the historical and religious status in Jerusalem and its sacred sites, foremost the blessed Aqsa mosque.” (Emphasis added)

Palestinians continue to reject all paths to a reasonable compromise on any issue related to the conflict that they created in the first place by not accepting a two-state solution seven decades ago. There is no reason to expect any different outcome this time. As Debkafile put it so well: “The Palestinians are consistent in their tactics: First shed Israeli blood, then tell the world they are victims and as martyrs are justified in seeking revenge.” As usual, much of the “international community,” as represented in the UN, will fall for this charade.

Categories: Egypt, France, Israeli government, Israeli security, Metal detectors, Palestinan terror at Temple Mount, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian heroes, Palestinian incitement, Palestinian rioters, Palestinian terrorists, Sweden, United Nations and Israel
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Trump Admin To Boycott U.N. Council Over Anti-Israel Agenda

March 20, 2017

Trump Admin To Boycott U.N. Council Over Anti-Israel Agenda, Washington Free Beacon, , March 20, 2017

UN PHOTO / Jess Hoffman via Wiki Commons

“The argument that the U.S. has to participate in bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council or risk losing our influence over it is ridiculous,” said one senior administration official familiar with the boycott. “The UNHRC is, like its predecessor, morally bankrupt and the only good news is that its actions have little practical effect in the real world. We’ve wasted enough time and money on it.”

The declaration signals a vast departure from the Obama administration, which, in its final days in office, helped craft and garner support for a fiercely anti-Israel resolution. The Obama administration’s efforts, which were widely condemned by Israel and U.S. pro-Israel groups, broke with decades of U.S. policy when it promoted this effort.

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The Trump administration will boycott the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, or UNHRC, due to its efforts to advance an anti-Israel agenda, according to senior administration officials familiar with the effort who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.

The UNHRC, which includes member countries cited for mass human rights abuses, is poised on Monday to adopt at least five anti-Israel resolutions, prompting outrage in the Trump administration over what officials described as the council’s unjust bias against the Jewish state.

The action on these items has prompted the Trump administration to boycott the council and refuse to attend the Monday meeting, according to administration officials apprised of the situation who spoke with the Free Beacon.

The boycott comes on the heels of the resignation of a Jordanian U.N. official who had sought to advance an anti-Israel agenda opposed by the United Statesand other nations.

Trump administration officials said the increased pressure on the U.N. is part of a larger effort by U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley to significantly reform the international organization and root out those who use it as a platform to push anti-Israel initiatives.

On Monday, the UNHRC is set to consider an agenda known as the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” It is said to include several anti-Israel declarations that the Trump administration fiercely objects to.

Senior Trump administration officials who spoke to the Free Beacon said the upcoming resolutions affirm the U.N.’s unacceptable bias against Israel, which remains the only member nation that has specific agenda items aimed against it.

The efforts to criticize Israel threaten the council’s credibility and are said to have motivated the Trump administration to boycott Monday’s meeting.

Haley and other senior administration officials have determined that this anti-Israel bias must be addressed before the U.S. rejoins the council and gives it legitimacy, according to sources.

The Trump administration told the Free Beacon it is fully committed to voting against “every resolution” targeting Israel and that it will encourage allies to do the same.

“The argument that the U.S. has to participate in bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Council or risk losing our influence over it is ridiculous,” said one senior administration official familiar with the boycott. “The UNHRC is, like its predecessor, morally bankrupt and the only good news is that its actions have little practical effect in the real world. We’ve wasted enough time and money on it.”

The declaration signals a vast departure from the Obama administration, which, in its final days in office, helped craft and garner support for a fiercely anti-Israel resolution. The Obama administration’s efforts, which were widely condemned by Israel and U.S. pro-Israel groups, broke with decades of U.S. policy when it promoted this effort.

Newly installed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated recently that the United States intends boycott the UNHRC until it implements much needed reforms, chiefly its anti-Israel bias.

The latest move is meant to bolster this policy and send a message that the UNHRC’s bias against Israel must cease before the U.S. considers the group legitimate.

The Trump administration intends to vote against every U.N. resolution against Israel and will urge other nations to do the same, according to officials.

The administration also is pushing other nations to criticize the UNHCR’s anti-Israel bias and promote significant reforms.

Categories: Trump agenda, Trump and Israel, Trump and United Nations, UNHRC, United Nations and Israel
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Yes, Indeed, Israel IS an Apartheid State

March 19, 2017

Yes, Indeed, Israel IS an Apartheid State, The Jewish Press, Rav Zev Shandalov, March 19, 2017

{Originally posted to Rav Zev’s eponymous blog}

The recipient of the “apartheid” segregation of public facilities, social events, housing and employment are the JEWS and not the Arabs!

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For those of you who have been reading what I have been writing over the past many years, you may be a little surprised (shocked?) to read the title of this post. Hang in there–it is not what you think.

First, a word about definitions: “Apartheid,” is a word rooted in Afrikaans, which was a system of institutionalized  racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa between 1948 and 1991.  Apartheid was delineated into petty apartheid, which entailed the segregation of public facilities and social events, and grand apartheid, which dictated housing and employment opportunities by race.

Yesterday, the United Nations, in yet another anti-Israel move,  proffered a report that accuses Israel of having established “an apartheid regime that oppresses and dominate the Palestinian people as a whole.” Almost immediately, the expected castigation of the UN began along with calls to stop funding the UN.

While I am NO fan of the United Nations, I think they got it right this time…with one minor exception. The recipient of the “apartheid” segregation of public facilities, social events, housing and employment are the JEWS and not the Arabs! If we take a look at Israeli society, we can come up with thousands of places that Arabs are gainfully employed both inside and outside the so-called “Green Line.” Arabs serve in our court system; major corporations; study in nearly every university or other higher-education facility in Israel; travel our buses and trains; drive our buses and trains; serve as Members of Knesset; doctors and nurses in all Israeli hospitals; are treated as patients in all hospitals…and so on, and so on, and so on.

Arabs enter into Judea and Samaria on a regular basis, both to work and to shop. Arabs are undoubtedly woven into the fabric of most of Israeli society. They can even freely walk on the Temple Mount (even playing soccer, G-d forbid!) and visit any holy site they wish to visit.  As long as there is not a heightened level of a security threat, Arabs living in Israel enjoy more freedom that most of their brothers in other Arab countries could only dream of.

And what about the Jews? If an Arab enters a place such as Maale Adumim to work, he will be greeted with a “good morning” or other friendly words. If a Jew would enter an Arab village (by accident or on purpose) he is taking his life into his hands and stands to be lynched at any time. Not only that, there are signs at the entrance to “Palestinian” villages saying that it is actually ILLEGAL for Jews to enter. Not only is it illegal, it is “dangerous to your lives.” (As you can see from the sign below)

Jews can not and do not work in the so-called “territories.” Jews do not drive Arab buses. Jews do not serve on any Arab city or municipal council. Jews are HIGHLY restricted from ascending the Temple Mount (the HOLIEST site in Judaism). Jews are not permitted to build homes where and when they wish. We can’t be treated in their hospitals.

Bottom line: Jews are barred from nearly all strata of Arab society, while Arabs have entrè to nearly every strata of Israeli/Jewish society. Arabs continually incite to violence in their schools. Imams preach hate on a daily and weekly basis from the mosques. Jews are vilified by Arabs in so many Arab sectors.

So, my dear United Nations, I ask you…how exactly do you see Apartheid in Israel? Because from where I am sitting, it is the JEWS who bear the brunt of that Apartheid character you so assail.

Categories: Israel - apartheid regime, United Nations and Israel
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Has the Time Come for Amexit From the UN?

January 24, 2017

Has the Time Come for Amexit From the UN? Algemeiner, Kenneth L Marcus, January 23, 2017

(The UN is rotten to the core. But what effect would a UN Security Council resolution have on America and her allies if America were no longer a member of the UN, hence of the Security Council and hence unable to veto the resolution? — DM)

unhrc1The United Nations Human Rights Council, in the Palace of Nations (Geneva). Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Governor Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador-nominee, recently observed, “The United States is the indispensable voice of freedom. It is time that we once again find that voice.” When we do find that voice, we may need to find a better venue in which it should be heard.

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As British Prime Minister Theresa May plans a Brexit from the EU, Americans may soon ask what kind of exit we want from another international institution.

In our case, the organization is not the European Union, but the United Nations. Earlier this month, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill to block taxpayer dollars from going to the UN. These senators, like many Americans, are incensed by a recent anti-Israel resolution adopted by the world body. But the US’ problems with the UN run deeper than one bad resolution. They are endemic to the institution. At some point, our elected leaders will ask whether the time has come not just to defund, but also to depart — and then replace the UN with something better.

That point may come sooner rather than later.

Today — Monday, January 23 — journalist Edwin Black is launching a national conversation about United Nations reform. At a major noon-time event in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, I will be pleased to join Black, US Representative Trent Franks and other concerned leaders in the launch of a new project called “The Covenant of Democratic Nations” (CDN). The event coincides with the first full workday of a new presidential administration. Additional events are planned for New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin, London, Ottawa and many other cities.

More of a conversation than an institution or a treaty, the CDN asks us to consider whether the time has arrived to fundamentally rethink our involvement with international institutions.

The United Nations was established seven decades ago, in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors, to free the world from the scourge of war, to promote social progress, to encourage treaty compliance and, in the language of the United Nations Charter, “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.”

Yet, in the ensuing years, this corrupt, ineffective and biased body has failed at all of these goals  — but none more sadly than its pursuit of fundamental human rights.

In retrospect, the UN’s basic problems were probably unavoidable from the start, given that the institution is by design primarily a congress of undemocratic, corrupt and ineffective nations. Consider that the 2017 elected membership of the UN Human Rights Council includes Burundi, China, Cuba, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and the United Arab Emirates.

In its one-sided obsession with Israel, the United Nations has largely disregarded serious human rights violations the world over. The UN, founded with such high hopes, has responded year after year with silence and indifference to persecution, torture and violence. It has done little to nothing to respond to global brutalities and genocides. From the Cambodian genocide to the bloodbath in Syria, the United Nations has proven peculiarly unfit to the task for which it was founded.

The problem with the United Nations is not just its abject failure to accomplish its mission, but also its affirmative wrongdoing. It has condemned one single state in resolution upon resolution. That state is democratic Israel. And through it all, tyrants throughout the rest of the world continue to go ignored.

To paraphrase Hillel Neuer, the UN has become the forum at which those who condone rape lament the rights of Palestinian women; the occupiers of Tibet bemoan the disputed territories West of the Jordan River; the bombers of Yemen castigate the treatment of Gaza; and the murderers of Muslims in Syria claim to care about Muslims in little Israel.

The UN’s failings were on display last month with passage of Security Council Resolution 2334, just as those failings were previously on display when the UN passed the infamous 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism. As then-US Ambassador to the UN Daniel Patrick Moynihan said at the time, “If there were no General Assembly, this could never have happened.”

Even the UN’s boldest critics agree that the UN does some important work. The question is whether other institutions could do it better. In Black’s vision, the CDN will review all of the United Nations’ treaties and actions. Some could be repealed, others continued and still others strengthened. The result could be a long-overdue rethinking of international law.

This doesn’t need to happen all at once. In England, Prime Minister May has chosen a “hard Brexit.” When it comes to the UN, we may have other options, and we may be well-advised to put strong new institutions in place before we withdraw from the old ones. The key however is that we should permit ourselves to think boldly and not feel imprisoned by the international status quo.

Governor Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador-nominee, recently observed, “The United States is the indispensable voice of freedom. It is time that we once again find that voice.” When we do find that voice, we may need to find a better venue in which it should be heard.

Categories: United Nations, United Nations and Islamists, United Nations and Israel, United Nations and Western Civilization, United States
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Obama’s Betrayal of Israel

January 13, 2017

Obama’s Betrayal of Israel, Gatestone Institute, Guy Millière, January 13, 2017

(Please see also, Israel is the legal occupant of the West Bank, says the Court of Appeal of Versailles. — DM)

President Obama’s decision not to use the US veto in the UN Security Council and to let pass Resolution 2334, effectively sets the boundaries of a future Palestinian state. The resolution declares all of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem — home to the Old City, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount — the most sacred place in Judaism — “occupied Palestinian territory,” and is a declaration of war against Israel.

Resolution 2334 nullified any possibility of further negotiations by giving the Palestinians everything in exchange for nothing — not even an insincere promise of peace.

The next act is the Orwellian-named “peace conference,” to be held in Paris on January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.

In this new “Dreyfus trial,” the accused will be the only Jewish state and the accusers will be the OIC and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus trial, the verdict has been decided before it even starts. Israel will be considered guilty of all charges and condemned. A draft of the declaration to be published at the end of the conference is already available.

The declaration rejects any Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice lines — thereby instituting apartheid. It also praises the “Arab Peace Initiative,” which calls for returning of millions of so-called “refugees” to Israel, thus transforming Israel into an Arab Muslim state where a massacre of Jews could conveniently be organized.

The declaration is most likely meant serve as the basis for a new Security Council resolution on January 17 that would recognize a Palestinian state inside the “1967 borders,” and be adopted, thanks to a second US abstention, three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.

The US Congress is already discussing bills to defund the UN and the Palestinian Authority. If Europeans think that the incoming Trump administration is as spineless as the Obama administration, they are in for a shock.

Khaled Abu Toameh noted that the Palestinian Authority sees Resolution 2334 as a green light for more murders and violence.

Daniel Pipes recently wrote that it is time to acknowledge the failure of a “peace process” that is really a war process. He stresses that peace can only come when an enemy is defeated.

Resolution 2334 and the Paris conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye’or wrote, simply a victory for jihad.

The Middle East is in chaos. More than half a million people have been killed in the Syrian war and the number is rising. Bashar al-Assad’s army used chemical weapons and barrel bombs against civilians; Russia has bombed schools and hospitals.

Syrians, Christians, Yazidis, Libyans, Yemenis and Egyptians all face lethal treats. Iranian leaders still shout “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” while buying nuclear equipment with money from lifted sanctions. Turkey is sliding toward an Islamist dictatorship, and unable to stem attacks against it.

The only democratic and stable country in the region is Israel, and that is the country U.S. President Barack Obama, in the final weeks of his term, chooses to incriminate. His decision not to use the US veto in the UN Security Council, to let pass Resolution 2334, effectively sets the boundaries of a future Palestinian state. The resolution also declares all of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, home to the Old City, the Western Wall and the Temple Mount — the most sacred place in Judaism — “occupied Palestinian territory,” and is a declaration of war against Israel.

UNSC Resolution 2334 nullified any possibility of further negotiations, by giving the Palestinians everything in exchange for nothing — not even an insincere promise of peace. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech five days later confirmed Obama’s support for the resolution. Kerry, like US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, used the existence of Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria as a pretext to endorse the position of Palestinian leaders, who want to ethnically cleanse Jews from these areas. But this was just a prelude.

The next act is the Orwellian-named “peace conference,” to be held in Paris on January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.

Organized by François Hollande, a failed French President who will leave power in four months, it was supported from the start by the Obama administration. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman called it “the new Dreyfus trial.” The accused will be the only Jewish state and the accusers will be the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus trial, the verdict is known before it starts. Israel will be considered guilty of all charges and condemned to what its accusers hope will be the beginning of its end.

2208Is Barack Obama planning another betrayal of Israel at next week’s Paris “peace conference,” organized by French President François Hollande? Pictured: Obama and Hollande in Washington, May 18, 2012. (Image source: White House)

Some commentators have compared what will happen in Paris to the 1942 Wannsee Conference in Nazi Germany, because the aim seems clearly to be the “final solution” of the “Jewish problem” in the Middle East. A draft of the declaration to be published at the end of the conference is already available. It affirms unreserved support for the “Palestinian Statehood strategy” and the principle of intangibility (that the borders cannot be modified) of the “1967 borders,” including East Jerusalem, the Old City and the Western Wall.

The draft declaration rejects any Jewish presence beyond these borders — thereby instituting apartheid — and praises the “Arab Peace Initiative,” which calls for returning millions of so-called “refugees” to Israel, and thus the transforming of Israel into an Arab Muslim state — where a massacre of the Jews could conveniently be organized.

The declaration is most likely meant to be the basis for a new UN Security Council resolution that would endorse the recognition of a Palestinian state in the “1967 borders” as defined in the declaration. The new resolution could be adopted by a second US abstention at the Security Council on January 17, three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.

On January 20, however, Donald J. Trump is to take office as President of the United States. Trump sent a message on December 23: “Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” He added explicitly that the U.S. “cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect.”

On January 5, the US House of Representatives approved a text harshly criticizing Resolution 2334. Congress is already discussing defunding the UN and the Palestinian Authority. If Europeans and members of UN think the incoming Trump administration is as spineless as the Obama administration, they are in for a shock.

Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens recently wondered if the creation of a Palestinian state would alleviate the current Middle East chaos. His answer was that it would not, and that the creation of a Palestinian state would be seen as a victory for jihadists. He also noted that the Palestinian Authority still behaves like a terrorist entity; that an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would encourage Hamas and lead to the creation of another terrorist Islamic state in the West Bank, and that an Israeli withdrawal is something that most Palestinians do not even want:

“[A] telling figure came in a June 2015 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which found that a majority of Arab residents in East Jerusalem would rather live as citizens with equal rights in Israel than in a Palestinian state.”

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab journalist who has never yet been wrong, noted that the Palestinian Authority sees Resolution 2334 as a green light for more violence, murders and confrontation. He added that if presidential elections by the PA were held today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would win by a comfortable margin.

In another important article, Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes writes that it is time to acknowledge the failure of a “peace process” that is really a war process. He stressed that peace can only come when an enemy is defeated. He predicts that for peace to come, Israel must win unambiguously, and the Palestinians pass through “the bitter crucible of defeat, with all its deprivation, destruction, and despair.”

Jihadi indoctrination, as well as the financial aid given to Palestinian terrorists, have been paid for by the United States, France, and other Western European nations. That too should stop.

Resolution 2334 and the Paris peace conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye’or wrote, simply victories for jihad.

Categories: Israel, Israel - Jewish state, Israel and Europe, Israel and France, Israel and human rights, Israel and UN, Israel borders, Israeli "occupied" territories, Israeli security, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, Obama and America's allies, Obama and America's enemies, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Obama and peace, Obama and the UN, Obama's affinity for Islam, Obama's America 2016, Obama's fondness for dictarors, Obama's legacy, Paris Peace Conference, UN Security Council, United Nations and Islamists, United Nations and Israel
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A necessary, natural move

January 11, 2017

A necessary, natural move, Israel Hayom, Prof. Eyal Zisser, January 10, 2017

(Please see also, Palestinians: Glorifying Mass Murderers. — DM)

The Palestinian terrorist, who perpetrated the deadly ramming at the Armon Hanatziv promenade Sunday afternoon in Jerusalem, did not any need any excuse to murder his victims. It’s possible he was influenced by previous ramming attacks carried out by Islamic State supporters in France and Berlin. It is also possible, however, that he was influenced by recent threats from people close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who warned that moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — as promised by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump — would lead to an ungodly eruption of violence.

Either way, we must recognize that in Palestinian society — inundated with incitement on social media but also from its institutions — there exists a fundamental motivation to harm Israel and Israelis, and it only takes a little for this desire to bubble to the surface. The appearance of ISIS on the scene as a radicalizing element has enraptured a large portion of the younger generation in the Arab and Muslim world, only making this reality worse.

The terrorist attack in Jerusalem came a few days after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry chose to warn Trump against relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem, as doing so would send the region up in flames.

Perhaps Kerry has failed to notice that the Middle East is already burning, for quite some time now. The flames have consumed Libya, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. But of all these places, which represent living proof of his failed policies, the outgoing secretary of state chose to focus specifically on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and repeat the same tired mantra that the region’s problems are rooted in the fight between Israel and the Palestinians.

Kerry’s advice to Trump not to move the embassy, therefore, is misleading and should be ignored.

Why is transferring the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem not inherently hazardous, and why is it possible to “sell” such a move to the Arab world? Because any reasonable person understands that doing so would not change the status of the city or the existing reality there in any significant way, nor would it cause a shift in Washington’s fundamental positions on the conflict.

After all, Jerusalem is home to Israel’s state institutions, from the President’s Residence to the Knesset, and all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel, including U.S. President Barack Obama and Kerry, comes to the city to meet their Israeli counterparts. Can anyone seriously argue for forbidding a meeting between a visiting president and his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem, because it could set the Middle East aflame?

Trump, therefore, can relocate the embassy to Jerusalem unperturbed and also make it clear that such a move, while necessary and natural, will not decide any of the fundamental questions pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not even regarding Jerusalem. With that, it would be best for Trump to notify Washington’s allies in the region and explain to them, politely but firmly, that moving the embassy is recognition of the reality on the ground, which Jordan and Egypt also accept. Doing so would help prevent any unnecessary emotional outbursts.

What Trump can learn from Kerry is that hesitation and trepidation are perceived as weakness in the region and invite pressure, belligerence and even a rejectionist approach. Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the other hand, who never sought favor from anyone, is respected and feared; certainly no one threatens to burn the region down in response to his policies.

Categories: Israel and Middle East, Israel settlements, John Kerry, Obama and Israel, Obama and Palestinians, Palestinian terrorists, President Elect Trump, Trump and Israel, U.S. Embassy, United Nations and Israel
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The UN Declares War on Judeo-Christian Civilization

December 27, 2016

The UN Declares War on Judeo-Christian Civilization, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, December 27, 2016

How is it that Western jurisprudence, created after the Second World War to prevent more crimes against humanity, is now being used to perpetuate more crimes and against democracies?

It is a dreadful manipulation to try erase all Jewish and Christian history, to make believe that all the world was originally and forever only Islamic. That is what a jihad looks like. It is not just orange jumpsuits, beheadings and slavery. If one can erase and rewrite history, one can redirect the future.

If Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault, argued UN expert Dubravka Simonovic with a straight face.

Last month, the President of the UN General Assembly sported the famous keffiyah scarf, a symbol of the “Palestinian resistance” (read terrorism). This is simply the continuation of the cultural obliteration of Israel, which is supposed to justify next its physical obliteration.

The UN’s war on the Israel’s Jews is, at heart, a war against the West. The UN and its backers are briskly paving the way for the European Caliphate.

2016 has been a sumptuous year for the anti-Semites at the United Nations. The UN Security Council just targeted the only democracy in the Middle East: the State of Israel. The outgoing Obama Administration reportedly orchestrated what even Haaretz called a “hit and run” campaign in UN to denigrate the Jewish State and leave it to a fate where only conflict and hate loom. This is a cultural genocide that is no less dangerous than terror attacks. It is based on anti-Semitic lies and creates the atmosphere not for achieving “peace”, as disingenuously claimed, but for perpetuating war.

UNSC Resolution 2334 is the culmination of a dizzyingly fruitful year for anti-Semites. Last November, committees of the UN General Assembly in a single day adopted 10 resolutions against Israel, the only open society in the Middle East. How many resolutions have been approved against Syria? One. How many against the rogue state of North Korea? One. How many against Russia when it annexed Crimea? One.

Hillel Neuer, of UN Watch, observed:

“Even as Syrian president Bashar Assad is preparing for the final massacre of his own people in Aleppo, the U.N. adopted a resolution — drafted and co-sponsored by Syria — which falsely condemns Israel for “repressive measures” against Syrian citizens on the Golan Heights. It’s obscene.”

Not a single resolution was approved for those states which really abuse human rights, such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, China or Cuba, not to mention many virtual tyrannies throughout Africa. Only one resolution was approved for the “Palestinian refugee properties”, but not even a single mention for the property of the Iraqi Christians in Mosul.

Another resolution in this racist banquet of the United Nations concerned the “application of the Geneva Convention in the occupied territories”. There are hundreds of territorial disputes in the world, from Tibet to Cyprus, but only Israel deserves to be called out?

According to the liars at the United Nations, the most evil country in the world is Israel. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad, and Jordan’s Prince Zeid al Hussein are sponsoring even now a “blacklist” of international companies that have ties with Israeli companies in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, to facilitate boycotting Israel in the evident hope of economically exterminating the only democracy and pluralistic nation in the region: the Jewish State.

The UN Envoy for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui of Algeria, suggested also including the Israeli army in the blacklist of countries and groups that regularly cause harm to children, along with Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Islamic State, the Taliban, and countries such as the Congo and the Central African Republic, infamous for their child-soldiers — but of course not the Palestinians, who continue to promote using children as combatants and children as “martyrs“. How is it that Western jurisprudence, created after the Second World War to prevent more crimes against humanity, is now being used to perpetuate more crimes and against democracies?

The UN women’s rights commission condemned Israel as the world’s only violator of women’s rights. Not Syria, where Assad’s forces use rape as a tactic of war, or the Islamic State, which enslaves women from religious minorities. Not Saudi Arabia, where women are punished if they do not wear the Islamic full-covering clothing in scorching temperatures, or drive a car or even leave the house. Not Iran, where “adultery” (which can include being raped) is punishable by being stoned to death. And if Palestinian men beat their wives, it’s Israel’s fault, argued UN expert Dubravka Simonovic with a straight face.

The UN’s World Health Organization also singled out Israel as the only violator in the world of “mental, physical and environmental health”, despite Israel being the only state in the world actually to give medical care to its enemies (ask Hamas leaders’ children).

Canadian law professor Michael Lynk was then appointed as the UN’s “impartial” investigator of alleged Israeli human rights violations despite his long record of anti-Israel lobbying, including his board membership on many pro-Palestinian organizations, including Friends of Sabeel and the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations.

Last October, the UN cultural agency, UNESCO — by magically declaring ancient Biblical Jewish sites “Islamic”, even though Islam did not historically exist until the seventh century, hundreds of years later — pretended, with the villainous complicity of the West, to erase the Jewish-Christian roots of Jerusalem.

It is a dreadful manipulation to try erase all Jewish and Christian history, to make believe that all the world was originally and forever only Islamic. It is a jihad. That is what a jihad looks like. It is not just orange jumpsuits, beheadings and slavery. If one can erase and rewrite history, one can redirect the future. If you do not know where you are coming from, what values will you defend or fight for?

Names matter. If it is Jewish, then it is called “Judea and Samaria”; if it is “Palestine”, you can say the “Jews stole it” and that Israel is a “colonialist construct” based on “injustice”. Why then is no one is pointing to the entire continent of South America, conquered from the native Indians by Cortés, Pizarro and Europeans with guns?

The latest UN Security Council resolution against Israel is not only about “settlements”, but the Old City of Jerusalem. Its members want to reset history not at 1967, but at 1948, the year Israel was born.

When Marcel Breuer and Bernard Zerfuss designed UNESCO’s building in concrete and glass at the Place Fontenoy in Paris, and Pablo Picasso donated frescoes to it, they most likely imagined the rebirth of Western culture after the tragedies of war, the Holocaust and the Nazi nightmare. Never in any other spot on earth were words such as “education”, “science”, “culture”, “freedom”, “peace” and “brotherhood” repeated so many times. There was hope and commitment that the future would be better — not worse. But the dream lasted no longer than the few minutes of the announcement.

The Soviet Union had in fact already stained UNESCO’s cultural programs with the red of Communism, such as when UNESCO promoted a “new world information order“, the goal of which goal was to end the dominance of the Western press — presented as a “threat” to the “cultural identity” of “Third-World” nations. Under the Eiffel Tower, the authoritarian and anti-Western Third World then took control of the UN cultural center, which became, according with the Washington Post, “overly bureaucratic, costly, wasteful and imbued with an anti-Western, anti-capitalist bias”.

Since then, Israel continues to be treated as a pariah by these ideological and corporeal criminals on the Seine. Even after that, in 1975 the UN body “tipped its hand” by propagating the anti-Semitic blood libel of “Zionism is racism“.

Last month, the President of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson, sported the famous checkered scarf, the keffiyah, a symbol of the “Palestinian resistance” (read terrorism). This is simply the continuation of the cultural obliteration of Israel, which is supposed to justify next its physical obliteration.

2158Last month, the President of the UN General Assembly, Peter Thomson, sported the famous checkered scarf, the keffiyah, a symbol of the “Palestinian resistance” (read terrorism). This is simply the continuation of the cultural obliteration of Israel, which is supposed to justify next its physical obliteration. (Image source: UN/Manuel Elias)

The fate of Judeo-Christian civilization — Christianity as well as Judaism — on which all our values are based, is tied to the fate of the State of Israel. If Israel ceases to exist, so does Christianity. The world has been witnessing how the few Christians and other non-Muslims still remaining in the rest of the Middle East — once the glorious Christian Byzantium — are being slaughtered, now that the Jews and Greeks are gone.

The United Nations’ war on the Israel’s Jews is, at heart, a war against the West. The UN and its backers are briskly paving the way for the European Caliphate.

Categories: UN Security Council, United Nations and Islamists, United Nations and Israel, United Nations and Western Civilization
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Security Council likely to vote on settlements Friday despite Egyptian reversal

December 23, 2016

Security Council likely to vote on settlements Friday despite Egyptian reversal, Times of Israel, December 23, 2016

A UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israeli settlements will likely go up for a vote Friday despite original sponsor Egypt pulling its support, after four countries agreed to present a draft resolution, diplomats said.

New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal and Venezuela stepped in after Egypt, under pressure from US President-elect Donald Trump, withdrew the measure.

“Most likely, we will have a vote soon,” French Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters.

“The key goal that we have here is to preserve and reaffirm the two state-solution,” said Delattre. “The text that we have does not exclusively focus on settlements. It also condemns the violence and terrorism. It also calls to prevent all incitement from the Palestinian side so this is a balanced text.”

Diplomats said the same draft resolution would be submitted to a vote, at the request of the four countries.

The draft resolution demands that “Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

It states that Israeli settlements have “no legal validity” and are “dangerously imperiling the viability of the two-state solution” that would see an independent Palestine co-exist alongside Israel.

The four member states had warned earlier that they would push ahead with the resolution if Cairo stood by its decision to delay.

“In the event that Egypt decides that it cannot proceed to call for vote on 23 December or does not provide a response by the deadline, those delegations reserve the right to table the draft … and proceed to put it to vote ASAP,” wrote New Zealand, Venezuela, Malaysia and Senegal in a note they presented to Egyptian officials, according to Reuters.

Egypt had said earlier its president received a call from Trump in which they both agreed to give the incoming US administration a chance to try and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The call came hours after Egypt indefinitely postponed the UN vote on its resolution, following pressure from Israel and Trump, who had called on members to veto it.

A statement from the Egyptian presidency said the two men spoke by phone early Friday and agreed on “the importance of giving a chance for the new American administration to deal in a comprehensive way with the different aspects of the Palestinian issue with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and a final resolution” to the decades-old conflict.

Egypt requested Thursday that its resolution demanding Israel halt settlements be postponed after Jerusalem launched a frantic lobbying effort.

An official in Jerusalem later Thursday accused the Obama administration of attempting a diplomatic “hit” against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlements by planning to let the resolution pass, and a second Israeli source said the administration, in its final days, was violating a “core commitment” to defend Israel at the UN.

“After becoming aware that the (US administration) would not veto the anti-Israel resolution, Israeli officials reached out to Trump’s transition team to ask for the president-elect’s help to avert the resolution,” an Israeli official told AFP on Friday.

“The [Trump] phone call touched on the draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council on Israeli settlements,” a statement from Sissi’s office said.

Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, bluntly said Washington should use its veto to block the resolution.

“The resolution being considered at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israel should be vetoed,” he said in a statement.

Categories: Israel, Israel and UN, Israeli settlements, Obama and Israel, UN Security Council, United Nations and Israel
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Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace

December 23, 2016

Trump and Sisi discuss Middle East peace, Israel National News, Elad Benari, December 23, 2016

trumpandsisiTrump and Sisi meet in New YorkReuters

“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.

Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.

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Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Thursday night spoke with U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump, Sisi’s office said, according to Reuters.

The call came hours after the UN Security Council postponed indefinitely a vote on Egypt’s draft resolution denouncing Israeli “settlements”.

“During the call they discussed regional affairs and developments in the Middle East and in that context the draft resolution in front of the Security Council on Israeli settlement,” said Sisi’s spokesman, Alaa Yousef.

“The presidents agreed on the importance of affording the new U.S. administration the full chance to deal with all dimensions of the Palestinian case with a view of achieving a full and final settlement,” he added.

Thursday’s vote on the UN Security Council resolution was reportedly postponed after Sisi instructed his nation’s delegation to push for a delay in the vote.

Trump had earlier called for the United States to veto the resolution, as it has traditionally done with similar proposals. American officials indicated that the Obama administration was planning to abstain from voting or even to vote yes.

Sisi recently praised Trump and said he expected greater engagement in the Middle East from his administration.

The Egyptian President has also been at the forefront of the effort to resume talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, having several months ago urged Israelis and Palestinian Arabs to seize what he said was a “real opportunity” for peace and hailed his own country’s peace deal with Israel.

The comments were welcomed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who stressed that “Israel is ready to participate with Egypt and other Arab states in advancing both the diplomatic process and stability in the region.”

Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman welcomed Sisi’s call as well, saying he welcomed the Egyptian president’s efforts to achieve peace and establish a Palestinian state.

Categories: Abbas, Egypt, Israel, Israel and Egypt, Israeli settlements, Middle East, Obama and Israel, Palestinian issues, Peace process, President Elect Trump, Sisi, Trump and Israel, UN Security Council, United Nations and Israel
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Obama sits while the UN moves toward a boycott of Israel

December 22, 2016

Obama sits while the UN moves toward a boycott of Israel, Washington Examiner, Anne Bayefsky, December 21, 2016

obamasitsonhandsWith Obama’s U.N. diplomats sitting on their hands while the funding scheme is being hotly debated, American taxpayers can expect to find themselves funding BDS in the very near future, with American businesses caught in the crosshairs. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

[Obama] prefers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with human rights authorities on the Human Rights Council like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Cuba. He is prepared to spend American taxpayer dollars to create a blacklist of companies doing business with the democratic state of Israel instead of the world’s most horrific regimes. A presidency spent courting moral relativism, forsaking U.S. allies, and indulging U.S. adversaries is about to reach its lowest point yet.

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U.S. companies are in for a shock as President Obama takes aim once again at Israel in the final month of his presidency. In the coming days, he is expected to direct his team at the United Nations to vote for U.S. funding of “BDS,” the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign aimed at financially ruining Israel and smearing the companies with which it does business.

The vote concerns the U.N. budget that is currently being negotiated and scheduled to be finalized this week. One of the line items provides funding for the implementation of a Human Rights Council resolution adopted in March. The resolution calls for the creation of a blacklist of companies around the world doing any business, directly or indirectly, connected to Israeli settlements. In effect, it launches a U.N.-sponsored BDS movement. Since the General Assembly holds the purse strings for the Human Rights Council’s operations, the time has come to allocate the money to pay for it.

With Obama’s U.N. diplomats sitting on their hands while the funding scheme is being hotly debated, American taxpayers can expect to find themselves funding BDS in the very near future, with American businesses caught in the crosshairs.

Israeli settlements consist of Jews living peaceful, productive lives on disputed territory whose ownership, by existing agreement, is to be determined through negotiations. This Jewish presence on Arab-claimed territory is offensive to a deeply anti-Semitic enemy that seeks to guarantee that land swapped in an eventual deal to create a Palestinian state will be Jew-free.

In the context of a Palestinian policy of ethnic cleansing, these Jewish farms, enterprises and schools are an “obstacle to peace,” to use the preferred verbiage of the United Nations and the Obama administration. The fact that Jews have repeatedly been moved in advance of a negotiated end to hostilities by their own government for the sake of peace, only to have those hopes dashed time and again, is simply dismissed.

The real obstacle to ending the Arab-Israeli conflict should be obvious after seven decades of non-stop war and terror since the minute of Israel’s creation. Arab rejectionists, on both the battlefield and diplomatic turf, consider all of Israel to be occupied territory and an illegal settlement from 1948 on. Rolling back the clock to the 1967 war is one stop on the way.

Those facts, however, will not intrude on Obama’s BDS calculus. He is an avid supporter of the Human Rights Council, one of the most extreme anti-Israel bodies at the United Nations. Joining the council was one of his first foreign policy initiatives. After serving two consecutive three-year terms starting in 2009, the rules required a one-year hiatus. Hence, the U.S. has not been a council member in 2016.

But attempting to rule from the grave, a week before the U.S. elections, Obama sought and obtained another three-year term to commence Jan. 1, 2017. As a council fan, he has no intention of objecting to funding it.

On the contrary, U.N. budget documents published Dec. 13 indicate that “new requirements” to implement council resolutions and decisions taken over the past year almost double the original $23 million it was allowed to spend for this purpose in the 2016-2017 biennium. Evidently, council devotees took for granted an Obama administration carte blanche.

On Dec. 15, the General Assembly budget committee (the “Fifth Committee”) met to approve the funds for the Human Rights Council, including the funds to create the Council’s blacklist — aka BDS “database.” U.N. documentation indicates that the cost is $138,700 “to pay for one staff member to create the database over a period of 8 months and present a report” to the Human Rights Council in March 2017. In other words, authorization is being backdated to pay for an operation already underway.

To put this in perspective, the council resolution on “Realizing the equal enjoyment of the right to education by every girl” needs $82,800. “Effects of terrorism on the enjoyment of all human rights” needs $74,700. And a blacklist of companies with ties to Israel needs $138,700.

At the Dec. 15 meeting, the Israeli U.N. representative on the Fifth Committee pleaded with “member states to reject the funding request.” But Obama’s U.N. diplomat — who was present and spoke on an unrelated issue — said nothing. The Palestinian representative floated procedural objections, claiming it was a done deal. Precedent, though, is not on his side.

In 2007, when the U.N. allotted money to fund a second iteration of the racist “anti-racism” Durban conference, the Bush administration stood rock solid on a matter of principle. The U.S. called for the vote in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee and unequivocally voted against. When it lost, it voted against the entire U.N. biennial budget.

Obama is not that man. He prefers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with human rights authorities on the Human Rights Council like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Cuba. He is prepared to spend American taxpayer dollars to create a blacklist of companies doing business with the democratic state of Israel instead of the world’s most horrific regimes. A presidency spent courting moral relativism, forsaking U.S. allies, and indulging U.S. adversaries is about to reach its lowest point yet.

Categories: BDS, Obama and Israel, UN BDS funding, UN Human RIghts Council, United Nations, United Nations and Israel
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