The #FakeNews no one talks about
With all the talk about #FakeNews recently, there's one piece of #FakeNews that's been accepted as truth for the last 24 years, because the Israeli government was foolish enough to accept it. I saw this on Facebook:
Judith Bergman on "fake news"...
"In all the talk about 'fake news'
Israel is missing an opportunity by not calling out the fakest of the
fake news, namely the professed existence of a Palestinian Arab people.
Palestinian Arab officials themselves have admitted that the professed
Palestinian identity is fake, an invention for the political and
tactical purpose of defeating Israel.
In a 1977 interview with Dutch newspaper Trouw, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein said:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian
state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of
Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference
between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for
political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a
Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit
the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism".
Hamas Minister of the Interior and of National Security Fathi Hammad
made it clear that nothing has changed since 1977. This is what Hammad
said when he was interviewed on Al-Hekma TV in March 2012: “Brothers,
half of the Palestinians are Egyptians and the other half are Saudis.
Who are the Palestinians? ... We are Egyptians…”
Why is the world -
and parts of the Israeli establishment - obsessed with establishing a
Palestinian Arab state, funnelling billions of taxpayer dollars into
that enterprise, if the Palestinian Arabs themselves readily admit that
their professed identity is fake? To begin with, the 'Palestine
industry' has become a flourishing business that would put many people
out of business if peace were to actually break out."
The reason the Israeli establishment accepted the existence of a 'Palestinian people' is that in 1993, Israel's Left saw the Messiah of 'Peace' and his name was 'Palestinian.' I've been railing about this stuff for
years.
But most of the Israeli establishment - including our Prime Minister - won't admit this. If they admitted it, they'd also have to admit that there's no 'two state solution' and admitting that would be admitting that everything they've done for the past 24 years has been misguided and wrong. So the #FakeNews continues to be treated as real.
Woe to those who cannot face the truth.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, fake news, Fathi Hamad, Palestinian people, Palestinian state, PLO, two-state solution, Zionism
Dahlan wants 'Palestinians' in Arab countries to be granted citizenship?
In an interview with the 'Palestinian' publication Maan, Fatah's former Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan hints that 'Palestinians' in Arab countries
should receive citizenship in the countries in which they reside.
Dahlan also criticized the PA and Fatah in particular for neglecting
Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East, especially in Syria and
Lebanon.
"Why are we treating our people in those refugee
camps just as neglectfully as we treat our people in Jerusalem and the
Gaza Strip?" he asked."The PA spends only 0.003 percent of
its budget on the Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon, and we are
talking about 600,000 Palestinian refugees living dire conditions and
deprived of the right to work, movement, education and medical
treatment, not to mention what Palestinian refugees in Syria have been
suffering as a result of the war," Dahlan alleged.
“I challenge whomever
to prove the opposite.”
Of course, the reason why 'Palestinians' are deprived of the right to work, movement, education and medical treatment is because they are not citizens of the countries in which they have lived for nearly 70 years. Here's
one example:
Lebanon
Around half of the 400,000 refugees live in camps, deprived of many
rights. Refugees don't have any property rights, no access to the
Lebanese healthcare system and there are certain restrictions on jobs we
are allowed to do. We are issued handwritten [travel documents](www.passport-collector.com/2011/08/10/lebanon-refugee-passport-for-palestine/)
of appalling quality (large size, cheap paper). The travel documents
don't even have a full date of birth, just the birth year. You probably
know about the Sabra and Chatila massacre (from the movie Waltz with
Bashir, perhaps my favorite animated movie) were 3000 Palestinian
civilians were killed in cold blood. These are at the top of my head,
I'm sure there's more. This is what a British MP Gerald Kaufman said in
2011 when he visited the camps:
When I went to Gaza in 2010 I thought I had seen the worst that could
be seen of the appalling predicament of Palestinians living in
conditions which no human being should be expected to endure. But what I
saw in the camps in Lebanon is far worse and far more hopeless. The
conditions are unspeakable, but for over 400,000 of our fellow human
beings this is their life: today, tomorrow and for a future that cannot
even be foreseen. At least in Gaza, frightful though the situation is,
the people are free within the confines of their blockaded prison. In
the camps of Lebanon they are not free.
UPDATE1: Since many here are blaming the PLO and its
involvement in the civil war. That's definitely true to a large extent,
however you're missing a few points. Most Palestinians refugees were
placed in camps in south Lebanon when they arrived. These camps were
gradually militarized and became the grounds for operations against
Israel and because the PLO had so much power back then, they started
making trouble and trying to control part of the country. So had the
Lebanon absorbed it's Palestinian population properly, this wouldn't
have happened.
But the reason that the Arab countries never absorbed their 'Palestinians' and made them citizens (except in Jordan - the article goes on to describe Syria, but they're not citizens there either) is because doing so would have meant giving up on holding them hostage to the Arab dream of destroying Israel - a dream that most of the Arab countries have themselves given up at this point, and that would no longer exist but for the Oslo Accords.
Even Dahlan himself admits that were it not for the 'Palestinian street,' the 'Palestinians' could live in peace in Israel.
The failures of PA leadership, in addition to repressive Israeli
policies in the occupied Palestinian territory, could have dire
consequences, Dahlan said.
"If this situation continues, we
will either yield to the occupation's conditions and rules -- which is
impossible at the popular level -- or have a popular uprising, which
will be very dangerous," he said, adding that the status quo could no
longer be sustained.
Because after seventy years of living the lie that they would one day return to their 'homes' in 'Palestine,' you can't quite tell these people in one day that the lie was a dream that's not going to come true. Of course, if you never start, you'll never be able to tell them either....
Dahlan strikes me as much more of a realist (although he is also a brutal murderer with
the blood of Israelis and Americans on his hands) than most of the 'Palestinian leadership.' But he still has a long way to go, and he's not very popular anyway, having been disgraced by Hamas when they took over Gaza.
Labels: Fatah, Mohamed Dahlan, Palestinian lies, Palestinian refugees, Palestinian state, PLO
PLO slams Ted Cruz for calling it a terror organization
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
The 'Palestine' Liberation Organization (PLO) has slammed Republican Presidential candidate and Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx) for
calling it a terror organization (Hat Tip:
Jack W via
Director Blue).
The Palestine Liberation
Organization on Thursday criticized Republican presidential candidate
Ted Cruz over a Senate hearing he oversaw on Palestinian and Iranian
terrorism that it called "biased and inflammatory."
In an unusually harsh statement issued
Thursday, the PLO said the Judiciary subcommittee hearing provided no
Palestinian viewpoint and conflated all Palestinians with terrorists.
The PLO expressed alarm at what it said was a growing trend in the
United States to "dehumanize" Palestinians.
In response, Cruz said, "It is not surprising a
terrorist organization like the PLO is upset with the truths that were
told at our hearing yesterday."
Cruz oversaw the Wednesday hearing titled
"Justice Forsaken: How the Federal Government Fails the American Victims
of Iranian and Palestinian Terrorism," in which several public
witnesses described acts of violence and complained about the Obama
administration, arguing that its Justice Department has failed to
prosecute terrorists who have killed and wounded Americans.
Cruz, the first-term senator from Texas,
opened the hearing with a vivid description of a Palestinian suicide
bomber attack on a Jerusalem street several years ago that killed and
wounded men, women and children.
Cruz spoke of "Americans who have suffered
greatly because of the horrific actions of Iranian and Palestinian
terrorists," and the recent surge of Palestinian terrorist attacks in
Israel.
"As bad as Palestinian terrorism has been, the
Iranian government has more American blood on its hands," said Cruz,
who reiterated his opposition to the recent international deal to curb
Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Among those who testified at the hearing was
Kenneth J. Stethem, whose brother, Robert, was killed by Hezbollah
terrorists during the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
"There has been no administration to date that
has supported Iran and the Palestinian terrorist organizations more
than the Obama administration," Stethem said in his prepared testimony.
And the 'Palestinian' response? Blame Israel, of course.
The PLO said the hearing
failed to mention "recent acts of Israeli incitement," including
killings and collective punishment of the Palestinian people.
"If there is a party to be condemned for their actions,
it is Israel, which continues to defy international law with impunity
because of the blind support it receives from people like Senator Cruz
and other senators," the organization said. "It is time for Israel
apologists on the Hill to put U.S. national interests ahead of those of
the current extreme right-wing government in Israel."
Sounds like Obama and Kerry wrote the PLO's statement for it....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, John Kerry, Palestinian terrorism, PLO, Ted Cruz, terror victim suits in US
Obama chooses 'Palestinian' terrorists over American terror victims
The Obama administration has chosen to protect the 'Palestinian Authority' over American terror victims by pressuring a Federal judge to
lower the bond that the 'Palestinian' terror group would have to post to appeal a verdict in favor of American terror victims in Israel.
The Obama
administration urged a U.S. judge to "carefully consider" the
Palestinian Authority's financial condition in determining the size of
any bond it must post to appeal a jury's finding that it supported
terrorist attacks in Israel.
The U.S. Department of
Justice filed a notice of interest in the lawsuit in Manhattan federal
court late on Monday, after 10 American families in February won a $655
million verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organization and
Palestinian Authority.
The Justice Department said the government "strongly supports" allowing terrorism victims to vindicate their interests in court.
Deputy
Secretary of State Antony Blinken nonetheless asked U.S. District Judge
George Daniels to "carefully consider" how requiring a
multimillion-dollar bond could affect the Palestinian Authority's
viability, given its delicate finances.
The
Palestinian Authority's collapse "would undermine several decades of
U.S. foreign policy and add a new destabilizing factor to the region,
compromising national security," Blinken said.
Kent
Yalowitz, the families' lawyer, said he was disappointed by the State
Department position. He said that if the Palestinian Authority "has
enough money to pay convicted terrorists, it has enough to pay the
judgment in this case."
...
In
February, jurors found the PLO and Palestinian Authority liable for six
shootings and bombings between 2002 and 2004 in the Jerusalem area,
which have been attributed to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas.
Those attacks killed 33 people, including several U.S. citizens, and injured more than 450.
The jury awarded the families $218.5 million, a sum automatically tripled under a U.S. anti-terrorism law to $655.5 million.
The PLO and the Palestinian Authority want the judgment stayed pending appeal, with no requirement to post bond.
The
families counter that the defendants should deposit $30 million per
month with the court. At a July hearing, Daniels signaled he might
require a bond.
Leaving aside the obvious (maybe they should have thought of the possibility of being held accountable before they dispatched terrorists to attack Israelis), the 'Palestinian Authority' continues to pay 'salaries' to
imprisoned terrorists,
freed terrorists and the
families of dead terrorists (whom they call 'martyrs') to this day. If they can do that, surely they can post a bond to ensure that their victims are also recompensed.
And if they cannot post a bond, let them pay the judgment.
The Obama administration should hang its head in shame over this one. But of course they won't.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, John Kerry, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorism, PLO, terror victim suits in US, US State Department
Oh my: Israeli Left blasts impending Iran nuke deal
No, it's not just Netanyahu and the Right who are the Israelis who oppose Obama-Kerry's surrender to Iran.
And it's not just about nukes. Consider what might happen if the US agrees to
lift the arms embargo on Iran.
Rather than promoting stability, greater access to advanced missiles,
artillery, and combat vehicles could empower a range of Iranian proxy
forces, partners and terrorist groups – from Lebanese Hezbollah to the
Syrian National Defense Forces (a sectarian paramilitary organization
tantamount to Iran’s Basij) to Palestinian Hamas— which remain a threat
to U.S. interests and to our regional allies, most notably Israel. These
forces could endanger U.S. personnel at regional diplomatic and
military facilities and make it more difficult for Washington to secure a
political solution in Syria and Iraq, let alone between Israel and the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
...
Increased arms flowing into Hezbollah’s hands and like-minded groups in
the Palestinian territories endanger the security of Israel.” Further
equipping and training of Yemen's Houthis could position this group to
threaten global trade through the Suez Canal if they are able to both
establish a naval presence from the Red Sea port of Hodeida and further
south at the Mandeb Strait. Increased IRGC armed shipments to the
Houthis could lead to more stand-offs in the Gulf of Aden with the U.S.
Navy.
Lifting the arms embargo on Iran could spell the end of the Israeli Left's dream of a 'Palestinian state' threatening Israel and could result in an arms windfall to Hamas and Hezbullah that would leave us on full-time war alert. Even Israel's Left gets that.
Labels: arms embargo, Barack Hussein Obama, Hamas, Hezbullah, Iranian nuclear threat, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, nuclear weapons, P 5+1, Palestinian state, PLO
Jury awards terror victims $218.5 million (x3) verdict against 'Palestinian Authority,' 'Palestine Liberation Organization'
A jury in Federal court in Manhattan has awarded $218.5 million to victims of 'Palestinian' terrorism. Under the terrorism laws, the damages will be tripled to $655.5 million. The damages are to be
paid by the 'Palestinian Authority' and the 'Palestine Liberation Organization.'
The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization
were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in
knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and
2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.
...
The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian
organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. And while the
decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it also could
serve to strengthen the Israeli claim that the supposedly more moderate
Palestinian forces are directly tied to terrorism.
The
financial implications of the verdict for the defendants were not
immediately clear. The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, had
serious financial troubles even before Israel, as punishment for the
Palestinians’ move in December to join
the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100
million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.
The
verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial in which the jury had
heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other
attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more
than 450 were injured.
“Money
is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families,
said in a closing argument on Thursday, noting that the antiterrorism
law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the
wallet.”
...
The
defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the
attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday
that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did
this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for
something they did not do.”
Hanan
Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for
the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all
sides.”
But
citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs
showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of
the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that
the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and
made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.
The 'Palestinian Authority' continues to pay 'salaries' to
imprisoned terrorists,
freed terrorists and the
families of dead terrorists (whom they call 'martyrs') to this day. If this verdict does nothing other than to make the 'Palestinian Authority' stop that practice, that will accomplish a lot. Hopefully, the verdict will accomplish more.
And just to give you some idea of how small this country is... one of my son's study partners in yeshiva has spent the last two weeks in New York at the trial. His father HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) was murdered in one of the terror attacks that was the subject of the trial. This boy was a pre-schooler at the time.
By the way, all of the plaintiffs in the trial were US citizens.
Labels: Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorism, PLO, terror victim suits in US
NY Federal court orders PLO to stand trial for terrorism
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ordered that the 'Palestine Liberation Organization' (PLO) be
placed on trial next week for terrorism (Hat Tip:
Gershon D).
A federal appeals court has chosen not to block a New York trial next week over a $1 billion lawsuit brought by U.S. terrorism victims against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit of Appeals said Tuesday that the PA and PLO had not demonstrated any "exceptional circumstances" that would warrant blocking the trial.
The trial over litigation brought by victims of seven shootings and bombings near Jerusalem between January 2001 and February 2004 is scheduled to start Jan. 13. The attacks killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more, including scores of U.S. citizens.
Can't wait to hear what the State Department has to say about this.
Labels: Palestinian terrorism, PLO, terror victim suits in US
Gaza 'closer than ever' to splitting from 'Palestinian Authority'
In a Tuesday speech, PLO Secretary General Yasser Abed-Rabbo whined that Gaza is 'closer than ever' to splitting from the 'Palestinian Authority' and of course he
blamed Israel.
Referring to the ongoing dispute between Fatah and Hamas, PLO
Secretary-General Yasser Abed Rabbo said that the “danger of the split
between the Gaza Strip and West Bank has increased in light of failure
to end the dispute.”
Speaking at a seminar in Ramallah organized
by the Palestinian Peace Coalition group, Abed Rabbo claimed that
Israel has for many years been seeking to separate the West Bank from
the Gaza Strip “by sowing seeds of division” among Palestinians.
“Israel is today close to achieving its goal,” Abed Rabbo said.
And I thought they split in 2007 when Hamas kicked Fatah and the 'Palestinian Authority' out of Gaza.... Silly me....
Labels: Gaza, Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Palestinian Authority, PLO, Yasser Abed Rabbo
Moonbat AG: ISIS, Hamas and Hezbullah flags out, but PLO flag in
In a letter to the prosecutors' offices, our moronic attorney general says that if you display an ISIS, Hamas or Hezbullah flag, you will be arrested and prosecuted (unless you're a 'Palestinian' or other non-Israeli citizen, in which case even those flags are okay),
but if an Israeli citizen displays a PLO flag, that's cool with Yehuda Weinstein.
The letter says that, according to Weinstein's opinion, the state is
on clear legal grounds to persecute such actions. “The Palestine
Liberation Organization was declared a terror organization many years
ago, and that designation has never been changed. Technically, flying
the PLO flag is a crime, as that was legislated when the PLO was
declared a terror group.
“Given the new relationship between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority, which represents the PLO, the Attorney General has for many
years overlooked the criminal aspects of flying the PLO flag, and no one
is persecuted [sic - CiJ] for this anymore,” the letter said. “With that, there is
no overall protection for flying the flag of terror groups, which is
still a crime.” That law, the letter said, needed to be enforced against
groups that practice terrorism, including ISIS, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
“When such flags and symbols are displayed police must judge if there
is a possibility of public disorder or disturbance, or of danger to the
public. If there is, police should take steps to remove the flags. In appropriate cases, charges may be made against perpetrators,” the letter added.
While the PLO flag could fly, the letter said, action should be taken
as quickly and forcefully as possible against the flags of other terror
groups, the letter said. “We have recently distributed these
instructions to police and security officials and expect them to act
according to these principles,” it added.
'Israeli Arabs' are now officially allowed to fly the 'Palestinian flag' in Israel. What could go wrong?
Labels: Fatah, Hamas, Hezbullah, ISIS, moonbats, morons, Palestinian flag, PLO, Yehuda Weinstein
Video: Hillel Neuer destroys PLO's Diana Buttu and 'human rights watch's Bill van Eswald
Al Jazeera tries to silence UN Watch's Hillel Neuer, but even a bit of
truth managed to throw ex-PLO lawyer Diana Buttu & Human Rights
Watch's Bill van Esveld on the defensive.
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Hillel Neuer, Human Rights Watch, Operation Protective Edge, PLO, United Nations Watch
Pass the popcorn: Jake Tapper eviscerates former PLO spokeswoman
Thank you Jake Tapper! In this interview, Tapper, whom I have followed on Twitter for years, eviscerates former PLO spokeswoman Dianna Bhuttu.
Let's go to the videotape.
Three cheers for Jake!
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, human shields, Jake Tapper, Operation Protective Edge, PLO
Oh my: Cost of Oslo accords would have financed 50 years of guaranteed income for 'Palestinians'
Research by Moshe Feiglin's Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud party shows that the cost of the failed Oslo accords - NIS 900 billion ($250 billion) and counting - would have financed
50 years of guaranteed income at current levels for each 'Palestinian' who would have left Israel instead.
The failed attempt
at regional peacemaking known as the Oslo Process has cost the state of
Israel over 900 billion shekels – more than $250 billion – since 1993,
and the costs keeps rising, according to a study by the Likud party's
Jewish Leadership faction, which is headed by MK Moshe Feiglin
(Likud-Beytenu).
By comparison, the total state budget for 2014 has been set at about 400 billion shekels, or about $115 billion.
The numbers came as a shock to the researchers, who recently gave a much lower estimate of the total financial costs of the botched endeavor.
Jewish Leadership's report on the study's results note that the same
amount of money would have sufficed for ensuring that 3.5 million Arabs
receive the same income that they currently enjoy, for a period of 50
years, in exchange for voluntary repatriation to Arab countries.
Instead of turning Gaza, Judea and Samaria into arms depots and
terror hotspots, Israel should apply its sovereignty to all of these
areas, settle them, make them flourish, and adopt a policy of reducing
the size of the Arab population and isolating it.
The research, which was led by Jewish Leadership's R&D Head,
Michael Fuah, examined nine fields of expenditure and tallied up what it
said were the minimal costs of the Oslo process to date, as follows:
Transfers of funds to the Palestinan Authority – 88 billion shekels
Added costs to Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) – 37 billion shekels
Added costs to the IDF – 300 billion shekels
Costs to Ministry of Public Security (police) and damage from massive car thefts – 105 billion shekels.
Hiring of civilian security guards all over Israel – 220 billion shekels
Construction of separation fence around territory handed over to the Palestinian Arabs – 4.7 billion shekels
Loss in tourism revenues during peak years of terror – 150 billion shekels
Cost of evicting Jews from Katif Bloc – 9.5 billion shekels
The study also found that more than three times as many Jews were murdered in terror attacks between 1994 and 2012 (the Oslo years) as between 1977 and 1993.
Thank you Uncle Shimon.
Labels: Gaza expulsion, IDF, Israel police, Oslo accords, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terrorism, PLO, security fence, Shimon Peres, Shin Bet
Breaking: PLO and Hamas announce agreement
Note that it's the PLO and not the 'Palestinian Authority.' That technicality may be jumped on in an attempt to salvage the 'peace process' with Israel. Hamas and the PLO have signed a '
reconciliation agreement.'
The move envisions forming a unity government within five weeks and
holding national elections six months after a vote of confidence by the
Palestinian parliament.
Previous agreements to form unity governments between the factions have failed to bear fruit.
...
The two sides were also discussing details of potential presidential
elections, parliamentary elections and the reconstruction of the PLO.
Anyone know how to watch the State Department briefings before they get posted on the web page (which happens after 11:00 pm here)?
What could go wrong?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, Ismail Haniyeh, Middle East peace process, PLO
So much for the 'Palestinians' not pursuing a 'diplomatic intifada'
Part of the 'deal' that called for the release of over 400 'Palestinian' terrorists and a 'settlement freeze' in exchange for Jonathan Pollard and extended talks was a provision that the 'Palestinians' would not apply to join the United Nations or any of its agencies while the talks continued. That condition has already been violated. On Tuesday, the 'Palestinians'
applied to join fifteen United Nations agencies claiming that their actions were in response to Israel 'forgetting' to release their terrorists.
In a surprise address at a meeting of the Palestinian Liberation
Organization's action committee, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
announced that he had signed 12 documents that the PA would use to
petition the UN.
Before signing the documents, Abbas asked the
members of the PLO leadership present at the address to vote yea or nay -
and the vote was unanimously in favor. Abbas then signed the papers,
under which the PA will be joining 15 international organizations.
Abbas said the leadership made its decision after Israel neglected to announce a fourth round of prisoner releases.
No word on which agencies are on the list.
Labels: Abu Mazen, John Kerry, Jonathan Pollard, Middle East peace process, PLO, settlement freeze, United Nations
Kerry tells Congress Netanyahu wrong to insist on 'Jewish state' declaration from 'Palestinians'
US Secretary of State John FN Kerry, who still insists he's a friend of Israel, told Congress on Thursday that
Prime Minister Netanyahu is wrong to insist on 'Palestinian' recognition that Israel is a Jewish state.
"I think its a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again
as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a
state, and peace, and we've obviously made that clear," Kerry told the
House Foreign Relations Committee, in a hearing on budget matters.
Yesterday, Kerry told a Senate panel that Israel and the Palestinians
had less trust in one another than at any point in over nine months of
negotiations.
"'Jewish state' was resolved in 1947 in Resolution 181 where there are
more than 40-- 30 mentions of 'Jewish state,'" Kerry continued. "In
addition, chairman Arafat in 1988 and again in 2004 confirmed that he
agreed it would be a Jewish state. And there are any other number of
mentions."
Netanyahu has said that the PLO's public recognition of Israel as a
Jewish state is a "minimal requirement for peace," and considers the
issue fundamental to the conflict: Arab refusal to accept a permanent
Jewish presence in the region.
Palestinian negotiators say that no other Arab nation that has made peace with Israel has had to declare it the Jewish homeland.
Kerry dampened expectations surrounding a visit by Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington next week, warning that trust
between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had hit a low point.
The Jewish state may have been mentioned in the 1947 resolution, but the 'Palestinians' didn't recognize it then and don't recognize it now. Arafat said a lot of things between 1993 and 2004, but the bottom line is that he never amended the PLO charter. Does Kerry really want to go there? And as to the difference between the 'Palestinians' and Jordan and Egypt, at the end of the day, we had a border dispute with Jordan and Egypt. The 'Palestinians' are insisting they have rights in our heartland.
But Kerry will do anything - ANYTHING - to get an agreement signed, including, but not limited to, selling Israel and the Jews down the river.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel is a Jewish state, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, PLO, two-state solution
PLO preparing to go to UN 'regardless of ongoing peace talks'
Aren't you glad that Israel decided to release all those terrorist murderers? Aren't you glad that we're sitting at a conference table to keep Barack HUSSEIN Obama and John FN Kerry happy? Meanwhile, the 'Palestinians' are planning to go to the UN '
regardless of the ongoing peace talks.'
A political committee of 12 members representing the Palestine
Liberation Organization's various factions convened in Ramallah and
agreed on recommendations to take the Palestinian plight to the UN and
its various bodies, a PLO official said on Saturday.
Hanna
Amirah, a member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, told Ma'an on
Saturday that the committee recommended addressing the United Nations
regardless of whether the ongoing peace talks make any progress or not,
although he added that a date had not been set.
The goal of
these recommendations, he said, is to enhance the Palestinian position.
However, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO
Executive Committee need to approve them before they can be put into
effect.
...
He asserted that the recent suggestions made by the US Secretary of
State John Kerry were completely unacceptable to the Palestinians.
He
highlighted that the proposals made related to Jerusalem, to Israeli
settlements, and to Palestinian refugees were unacceptable in particular
as well as the proposed Israeli military and civilian presence in the
Jordan Valley.
...
It is of great importance, he added, that the PA joins the International
Criminal Court because that will enable the PA to sue the Israeli
occupation over war crimes and crimes against humanity.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, International Criminal Court, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, PLO, United Nations
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me
Shame on the Israeli government for falling for this gambit.
Israel agreed to free 104 terrorist murderers (and has already freed 78 of them) in exchange for the 'Palestinians' returning to the conference table and eschewing proceedings to make themselves a 'state' at the United Nations and its various bodies until such time as 'negotiations' are concluded. Now, the 'Palestinians' have decided to
return to the United Nations in clear violation of their deal with Israel.
The PLO – the Palestinian terrorist groups' umbrella
organization – has decided to authorize moves to join international
bodies under UN auspices, and to sign international conventions – even
though it had promised last year not to do so, in exchange for the
release of 104 terrorist murderers from Israeli jails.
In a session of the PLO Acting Committee in Ramallah Monday, under
Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO leadership
instructed the Diplomatic Committee which is subordinate to it, to
immediately begin preparing an action plan in this spirit.
When negotiations between the PA and Israel were renewed in 2013, the
Palestinians committed to freeze all initiatives to turn to
international bodies against Israel, in exchange for the release from
Israeli jails of 104 terrorist prisoners who had committed murderous
attacks.
Israel has stood up to its side of the deal, releasing 78 terrorist
prisoners in three batches to date. The final installment of murderers
is due to be released in about 10 weeks' time.
The PLO issued a statement blaming Israel for the current difficulties in the diplomatic process.
I wonder whether US Secretary of State John FN Kerry will be back here again this winter.
Labels: Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, Palestinian terrorists, PLO, unilateral concessions, United Nations General Assembly
Joined at the hip: New Iranian Defense Minister was behind Hezbullah's Beirut Marine baracks bombing
This probably makes President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry feel all warm and fuzzy, but patriotic Americans are and should be
outraged.
Thirty years ago last month, Hezbollah blew up the barracks of the U.S
Marines and French paratroopers stationed at the Beirut airport, killing
241 U.S. servicemen and 58 Frenchmen. It wasn’t Hezbollah’s first
terrorist operation, but this attack, the most memorable in Lebanon’s
vicious and chaotic 15-year-long civil war, marked the Party of God’s
entry onto the world stage.
Three decades later, thanks to the efforts of Israeli Hezbollah expert
Shimon Shapira, we now know that one of the men responsible for the
attack was an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander named
Hossein Dehghan—the man Iranian president Hassan Rouhani recently
tapped to be his defense minister. In other words, Hezbollah and the
Islamic Republic of Iran have been joined at the hip from the very
beginning, even before the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Iran's early involvement in Hezbullah puts the lie to the claim that Hezbullah was founded as a reaction to the Israeli presence in southern Lebanon.
The big bang theory of Hezbollah that puts the Israeli
occupation at the alpha point is based not in fact but in legend—it’s
an Israel-centric myth that makes the Jewish state Hezbollah’s
motivation and prime mover. In reality, the story of Hezbollah’s origins
is a story about Iran, featuring the anti-shah revolutionaries active
in Lebanon in the 1970s, years before Israel’s intervention. Thus, to
uncover Hezbollah’s roots, it is necessary to mine the accounts of
Iranian cadres operating in Lebanon a decade before Israel invaded.
There we find that, contrary to the common wisdom,
Hezbollah didn’t arise as a resistance movement to the Israeli
occupation. Rather, it was born from the struggle between Iranian
revolutionary factions opposed to the shah. Lebanon was a critical front
for this rivalry between Hezbollah’s Iranian progenitors and their
domestic adversaries. Accordingly, an accurate understanding of this
history gives us not only the true story of Hezbollah’s beginnings, but
also an insight into the origins of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Those
early internal conflicts and impulses, played out in Lebanon as well as
Iran, also provide a roadmap for reading the nature of the current
regime in Tehran, its motivations and concerns, its strategies and
gambits as it moves toward acquiring a nuclear weapon and challenging
the American order in the Middle East.
And Yasser Arafat's PLO was right in the thick of things - yes, in founding Hezbullah.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Ayatollah Khomeni, Hezbullah, Imad Mughniyah, Iranian revolution, PLO, Yasser Arafat
Our 20-year nightmare
On the Gregorian calendar, it happened twenty years ago today on the White House lawn. I was in New York at the time, representing a client of my boss who was a high-ranking member of the Labor party in meetings with underwriters. (The client turned out to be a fraud - his only sale was to his own company and the company never went public). The client was exuberant. Now, there was going to be 'peace,' he told me. I had been in Israel two years, and even then I knew that he was out of his mind. After all, I had been in yeshiva here from 1978-80, had buried one friend who was a terror victim, and knew of many others. We had the PLO down and out. Now, we had let them up to live another day.
Caroline Glick marks today as the
20th anniversary of our national nightmare.
Diplomatically, Israel has paid an immeasurable price for the
abject stupidity of our leaders' willful blindness to the rank phoniness
of the PLO's commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel. The
glaring obviousness of the danger of accepting the false historical
narrative of our sworn enemies on our ability to defend ourselves
internationally was so overwhelming that no one even bothered to mention
it in the years before the so-called Oslo accord was concluded.
But
today, after twenty years of self-induced diplomatic failure has
rendered Israeli leaders and representatives incapable of defending the
country, it is necessary to explain it.
The PLO falsely claims
that the cause for instability and violence in the Middle East is the
absence of a Palestinian state in the lands Israel took control over
from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War.
Before
the inauguration of the so-called peace process, Israel easily defended
itself against this libel. After all, the PLO was established in 1964 -
three years before Israel took control over Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria
and Gaza. Its declared purpose was and remains the destruction of
Israel, not the establishment of a Palestinian state on some of the
territory Israel controls.
The absence of
regional peace has nothing at all to do with Israel. It stems from the
virulent Jew hatred that is endemic throughout the Islamic world. Due to
this hatred Israel's neighbors seek its destruction. The centrality of
their irrational, obsessive desire to seek the eradication of the Jewish
people and the Jewish state is the reason there has been no true peace
between Israel and its neighbors - including its Palestinian neighbors.
And because their hatred is irrational and all-encompassing, there is
nothing Israel can do to appease them.
Israel
was able to defend itself from the PLO's lies to great effect before it
accepted this terrorist organization as a legitimate actor and so
accepted the legitimacy of its duplicitous narrative. But since it did,
it has been unable to explain its actions, or increasingly, its right to
exist at all. Because if the absence of a Palestinian state in Israel's
heartland, and its capital city is what stands behind all the bad
behavior of the Arab world, then everything that Israel does that
impinges even marginally on the establishment of such of state is
immoral, destabilizing and dangerous.
This is
why even Israel's most skilled diplomats - to the extent they still
operate in Israel's PLO-besotted Foreign Ministry -- cannot defend us.
This is why a generation of Israeli leaders have zero to show for their
efforts to defend this country. They are trapped in a policy discourse
that is founded on anti-Israel lies.
Then there
is our alliance with the United States. To legitimize the single most
destructive action ever undertaken by an Israeli government, the
Rabin-Peres government approached the Clinton administration and asked
it to sponsor this objectively insane policy, strenuously opposed by
half the country.
Bill Clinton was happy to
oblige them. But once the Americans were on board, and placed US
prestige behind a policy which, based as it was on lies, had no chance
of success, Israel could not walk away.
Once
the Americans supported a policy that half of the public - and now
two-thirds of the public - opposed, Washington necessarily found itself
siding with an ever shrinking minority of Israelis against the majority
of the public. Consequently for the past twenty years, US decision
makers have backed policies that have become progressively more
anti-Israel.
From a domestic perspective, the
phony peace process has taken an enormous toll on Israeli society and
democracy. To defend such a move so strenuously and reasonably opposed
by such a large portion of the public it was necessary to marginalize
the public. And so we were subjected to a systematic effort to purge and
discredit dissident voices from the senior and later junior ranks of
the IDF, from the Foreign Ministry, (although Peres had done much of the
work pruning responsible voices out of the ministry in the previous
decade), and from the Justice Ministry.
Responsible
opponents in the public square were castigated as extremists and
enemies of peace, little different from terrorists. A new vocabulary to
hide reality - like calling terror victims, victims of peace - was
invented.
Four times over the past twenty
years - in 1994, 1995, 2000 and 2005 - the peace processors brought
Israeli society to the brink of collapse. Lawful demonstrators and
political activists - including minor children - were criminalized, and
often jailed and put on trial for their civil disobedience. The
corruption of Israel's legal system, which applies laws unequally to
various members of the public, depending on their political views was a
direct outcome of Israel's decision twenty years ago to embrace the PLO.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Bill Clinton, Middle East peace process, Oslo accords, PLO, Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat, Yitzchak Rabin
'Palestinians' seethe: Kerry asks EU to delay 'settlement guidelines'
In light of the ongoing 'negotiations' between Israel and the 'Palestinians,' US Secretary of State John Kerry has asked the European Union to delay the 'settlement guidelines' that would force Israel to exclude Judea and Samaria residents from all European projects. The 'Palestinians' are
seething.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry asked EU
foreign ministers who met in Vilnius, Lithuania to delay any action on the
matter given that direct talks were renewed between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority at the end of July.
At a briefing with reporters prior to the
meeting, a senior state department official said, “The secretary’s message to
the EU foreign ministers will be very clear, that now that the parties are in
negotiations and both leaders took difficult and painful – politically painful
decisions in order to get into these direct negotiations – that it’s important
for those parties who have an interest in a successful outcome that they be
supportive of this effort and that they find a way to embrace the negotiators
and encourage them to move forward, rather than, as it were metaphorically, bang
them over the head.”
When asked about Kerry’s request at a press
conference after the meeting, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said, “I
want to reiterate the issue of the guidelines, that this is putting down on
paper what is currently the EU’s position.” She added, “We will be sending a
team to Israel on Monday... to make sure that in the implementation, we are
doing so sensitively.
...
PLO executive committee member Dr. Hanan
Ashrawi expressed concern over Kerry’s request to the EU.
“The
announcement of the EU guidelines was a very positive step which played a
significant role in the decision to resume negotiations. By refusing to extend
grants and awards beyond the Green Line, these guidelines reinforce the 1967
border and play a constructive role in reaffirming the two-state solution,
something which can only help the cause of peace.
“Reports of US lobbying the EU
on behalf of Israel are extremely discouraging and cast serious doubts on the US
mediation role,” Ashrawi added. “Once again the US is using the negotiations
process to grant Israel immunity and to buy it more time to create facts on the
ground, thereby rendering the so-called ‘peace process’ a self-defeating
exercise.”
How does one 'sensitively' put a knife to a patient without anesthesia?
I agree that the 'so-called peace process' is a 'self-defeating exercise,' but that's because in the last 20 years the 'Palestinians' have never made a single concession.
What could go wrong?
Labels: Catherine Ashton, European anti-Semitism, European Union, Hanan Ashrawi, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, PLO
