Tag: Mahmoud Abbas

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TRUMP EMBRACES THE PLO FANTASY

The PLO is the Siren that drowns US administrations.

US President Donald Trump is losing his focus. If he doesn’t get it back soon, he will fail to make America great again or safe again in the Middle East.

After holding out for a month, last week Trump indicated he is adopting his predecessors’ obsession with empowering the PLO .

This is a strategic error.

There are many actors and conflicts in the Middle East that challenge and threaten US national interests and US national security. Iran’s rise as a nuclear power and regional hegemon; the war in Syria; Turkey’s abandonment of the West; and Russia’s regional power play all pose major threats to US power, security and interests. The Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State, Hamas and other Sunni jihadist movements all threaten the US, Europe and the US’s Sunni allies in the region in a manner that is strategically significant to America.

None of these issues, none of these actors and none of these threats are in any way related to or caused by the PLO and its interminable, European-supported hybrid terror and political war against Israel. None of these pressing concerns will be advanced by a US embrace of the PLO or a renewed obsession with empowering the PLO and its mafia-terrorist bosses.

To the contrary, all of these pressing concerns will be sidelined – and so made more pressing and dangerous – by a US reengagement with the PLO .

And yet, over the past week, Trump has indicated that the PLO is now his focus.

Last Friday, Trump spoke on the telephone with Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is head of the PLO and the unelected dictator of the corrupt, terrorism-sponsoring, PLO -controlled Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria.

According to media reports, Trump told Abbas – whose legal term in office ended eight years ago – that he views him as a legitimate leader. According to the official White House report of the conversation, Trump also reportedly told Abbas that he supports reaching a deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Such a deal, to the extent it is ever reached, involves expanding PLO control over Judea and Samaria and parts of Jerusalem at Israel’s expense.

Trump also invited Abbas for an official visit to Washington. And the day after they spoke, the Trump administration moved $250 million in US taxpayer dollars to Abbas’s police state where for the past 25 years, Abbas and his cronies have enriched themselves while feeding a steady diet of antisemitic, anti-American jihadist bile to their impoverished subjects.

To build up his credibility with the PLO , Trump put his electoral pledge to move the US embassy to Jerusalem on ice. The real estate mogul ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deny Jews the right to their property and their legal right to use state lands in Judea and Samaria.

And swift on the heels of that conversation with Abbas, Trump’s chief negotiator Jason Greenblatt was dispatched to Jerusalem to begin empowering the PLO at Israel’s expense.

According to media reports, Greenblatt intended to use his meeting Monday with Netanyahu was to reject Netanyahu’s commitment to build a new Israeli town in Samaria. Greenblatt was also reportedly intending to dictate the parameters for yet another round of negotiations with the PLO.

After meeting with Netanyahu, Greenblatt continued on to Ramallah to embrace Abbas.

Also during his stay, Greenblatt is scheduled to meet with IDF generals who are responsible for giving money and providing services to the PLO.

And Greenblatt doesn’t have the Palestinians to himself.

Following Trump’s conversation with Abbas, plans were suddenly afloat for Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump to visit Israel and spend an afternoon with Abbas in Ramallah.

If things develop as reported, then Trump is serious about embracing the PLO and intends to have his top advisers devote themselves to Abbas and his henchmen. If that is the case, then Trump is setting himself, his advisers, his daughter and the US up to fail and be humiliated.

The PLO is the Siren that drowns US administrations. It is to the PLO that America’s top envoys have eagerly flown, gotten hooked on the attention of the demented, anti-Israel press corps, and forgotten their purpose: to advance US national interests.

If Trump is serious about repeating this practice, then rather than repair the massive damage done to the US and the Middle East by his two predecessors, the 45th president will repeat their mistakes. Like them, he will leave office in a blaze of failure.

To understand why this is the case, three things must be clear.

First, the PLO will never make peace with Israel. There will never be a Palestinian state.

There will never be a peace or a Palestinian state because the PLO wants neither. This is the lesson of the past 25 years. Both Abbas and his predecessor Arafat rejected peace and statehood multiple times and opted instead to expand their terrorist and political war against Israel.

Why did they do that? Because they are interested in two things: personal enrichment – which they achieve by stealing donor funds and emptying the pockets of their own people; and weakening, with the goal of destroying Israel – which they achieve through their hybrid war of terrorism and political warfare.

The second thing that needs to be clear is that the Palestinians are irrelevant to the rest of the problems – the real problems that impact US interests – in the region. If anything, the Palestinians are pawns on the larger chessboard. America’s enemies use them to distract the Americans from the larger realities so that the US will not pay attention to the real game.

Iran will not be appeased or defeated if Trump empowers the PLO in its war against Israel and continues feeding PLO leaders’ insatiable appetite for other people’s money.

The Sunni jihadists will not beat their swords into plowshares if the US coerces Israel to cough up land to the PLO . To the contrary, they will be emboldened.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not move his forces out of Syria or stop giving nuclear technologies to Iran if the US turns the screws on Israel. Putin will come to the conclusion that Trump is either weak or stupid to damage Israel, the US’s most serious ally.

And of course, Israel will not be better off if Trump decides to push it back onto the peace train which has caused it nothing but harm for the past quarter century.

Trump’s election opened up the possibility, for the first time in decades, that the US would end its destructive obsession with the PLO. For three months, Israelis have been free for the first time to discuss seriously the possibilities of applying Israeli law to all or parts of Judea and Samaria. And a massive majority of Israelis support doing just that.

On the Palestinian side as well, Trump’s election empowered the people who have been living under the jackboot of Abbas and his cronies to think about the possibility of living at peace with Israel in a post-PLO era. Polling results indicate that they too are eager to move beyond the Palestinian statehood chimera.

But now, it appears that Trump has been convinced to embrace the PLO obsession. The same entrenched bureaucrats at the State Department and the same foreign policy establishment in Washington that brought the US nothing but failure in the Middle East for a generation appear to have captivated Trump’s foreign policy. They have convinced him it is better to devote his top advisers to repeating the mistakes of his predecessors than to devote his energies and theirs to fixing the mess that Obama and George W. Bush left him with. They have gotten him to believe that it is better to empower the PLO than develop coherent strategies and plans for dealing with the problems of the region that actually endanger US interests and imperil the security and safety of the American people.

Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post.

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Mr. Obama, your legacy is secure

The recent reluctance of the US to veto UN resolution 2234, which essentially singles out Israeli construction as the main obstacle to a two state solution has been seen by some as the final nail in the coffin in a combative relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu that has endured throughout both terms of the Obama presidency.

While this may be obvious, I doubt it will silence those who are still convinced Obama is a strong, reliable friend to Israel. Indeed, in his post UN resolution justification speech at the State Department, Secretary of State John Kerry said “no American administration has done more for the security of Israel than Barack Obama.”

Such self-promoting observations make convincing sound bites, regardless of their accuracy. However, since the door is about to close permanently on the Obama administration, it might be worthwhile to check Kerry’s comment against the facts.

A stroll down memory lane of the Obama tenure recalls the following:

Right out the starting gate his first phone call to a foreign leader in January, 2009 was to Mahmould Abbas, letting him know he was the first foreign leader he called as President of the United States.

In June 2009 his first foreign speech was delivered in Cairo where he signaled a new era in US-Muslim relations. He made the following comments during the speech:

“the United States does not accept the continued legitimacy of Israeli settlements.”

“they (Palestinians) endure daily humiliation, large and small, that come with occupation.”

He signaled a new approach toward Iran (the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism) by letting Israel know their flexibility toward the Palestinians would influence Obama’s approach to Iran. In effect he was invoking diplomatic blackmail against Israel.

He demanded Israel sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and threatened to expose a 40 year old confidential understanding between Israel and the US about its Dimona nuclear facility if Israel didn’t sign the NNPT. Israel did not. Obama retaliated by interrupting routine travel of Israeli nuclear scientists between the two countries.

In 2010 after seeing a clear pattern of hostility toward Israel, over 50 retired US Generals signed a letter to Obama demanding he stop treating Israel so poorly and treat them like ally they are.

Also in 2010, in an unprecedented move, both houses of Congress having seen the same hostile pattern,  signed letters telling Obama to stop treating Israel so poorly.

Apparently Obama didn’t get the message. The same year he walked out on a White House meeting with Netanyahu, leaving him sitting alone. While Obama had dinner with his wife Michelle Netanyahu was let in and out of a side door to the White House with no diplomatic fanfare.

Subsequent to this Mahmoud Abbas was welcomed with full diplomatic protocol and fanfare.

In 2011 Egypt ousted Hosni Mubarak, a 30 year US ally, replacing him with Mohammed Morsi, a Muslim fundamentalist and member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Obama openly supported Morsi. This brought a further chill in US-Israel relations.  A little over a year later the Egyptians voted Morsi out. Obama voiced his opposition to Morsi’s purging. Today, Morsi remains in prison.

In May 2011 while Netanyahu was airborne in route to Washington, to address a joint session of Congress Obama spoke to Congress urging any two state solution should be based on ’67 lines, with mutual land swaps. The timing of Obama’s speech was seen as an effort to sabotage Netanyahu. Following Obama’s speech, in an unprecedented bi-partisan move, Republican and Democratic leaders condemned Obama’s speech and publically distanced themselves from the President.  When Netanyahu delivered his speech to the joint session of Congress he received 30 standing ovations, which was largely seen as a rebuke of President Obama, who along with Vice President Biden and John Kerry, were noticeably absent during Netanyahu’s speech.

In March 2013 in Ramallah Mahmoud Abbas referred to Israel’s 1948 rebirth as “the Nakba,” (the catastrophe), while Obama stood next to him in silence.

During Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 war with Hamas (who has fired over 15,000 rockets into Israel against innocent civilians) Obama threatened to stop US arms supply to Israel.

In 2015 Israel was gearing up for new elections. Jeremy Bird, a democratic strategist who helped the 2012 Obama campaign, was dispatched to Israel in an effort to help defeat Netanyahu. This brought harsh criticism of Obama for what was seen as a direct effort to influence Israeli elections. In the end the effort failed as Netanyahu was re-elected. Today he has become the longest serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history.

Finally, in what was called by many as the single most damaging decision Obama made is the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. No other move has caused greater concern for Israel’s security than this agreement. While there remains robust disagreement on the deal’s justification, there is little doubt Israel has the most to lose.

To be fair to Obama, there has been an occasional bright spot. For example the US did award Israel a $38 billion 10 year defense package, which is the largest ever. Yet,  it does part from previous such packages in that by year three 100% of the funds must be spent in the US. Prior agreements allowed Israel to award up to 24% of the funds to their own defense contractors.  The absence of this option will have a severe impact on small – medium companies and put thousands of Israeli’s out of work.

There are numerous other examples of how the Obama administration has been a blight on relations with the strongest ally the US has in the Middle East, however I believe the short list contained herein constitutes more than enough facts to render Kerry’s words about the Obama Administration commitment to Israel’s security little more than what they are- mere words, with little or no facts to corroborate them. The reality shows the Obama administration has been one of, if not the most hostile ever toward Israel.

Meanwhile 4 more Israeli’s were just murdered in the ongoing wave of Palestinian terrorism which began in October, 2015. To date President Obama has not held Palestinian leadership accountable for a single Israeli death.

As the old saying goes, with “friends” like this…..

President Obama, your legacy has been secured. Time for an actual friend of Israel to take over…..

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JOHN KERRY: OBSTACLE TO PEACE

Kerry believes that peace is what happens when the bad guys win.

Before Obama decided to “abstain” from standing with Israel in a UN vote condemning the Jewish State, he had abstained from voting in defense of America in a UN resolution condemning the United States.

Obama, like Power and Kerry, have treated Israel just like they treated the United States.

John Forbes Kerry began his miserable career as a traitor seeking “peace” by pandering to the Communist leader negotiating on behalf of the Viet Cong. He concludes his miserable career in the Senate and as Secretary of State by going to war in the name of “peace” against the only democracy in the Middle East on behalf of a totalitarian Islamic ideology and its terrorist bands of killers.

Half a century has passed. The Berlin Wall fell. So did the Soviet Union. But John Kerry remains the same.

A few months after he slimed his way into the Senate, Kerry flew to Nicaragua to meet with the ruling Communist thugs to try and sabotage aid to the resistance against their regime in the name of “peace”. The Sandinistas treated Kerry like a pathetic patsy, humiliating him by allying openly with the USSR right after their man in Washington D.C. had successfully pleaded their case to his colleagues.

Comandante was only the first of many dictators and terrorists to humiliate John Kerry. But Kerry has never resented any of his Communist or Islamist tormentors. You can set Kerry’s hair on fire and dunk his head in the toilet to put it out… and he will still come crawling back to take your side of things.

But there is one thing that Nantucket’s greatest windsurfer will not forgive or forget. Freedom.

For the worse part of five decades, Kerry has waged a vicious war against countries that have freedom on behalf of those that don’t. Nothing gets his goat like a civilized country, his own or any other, staving off a murderous band of thugs and terrorists. And no country has endured so well in that fight as Israel.

Kerry’s career as Secretary of State has been a miserable failure highlighted by stretches of spectacularly incomprehensible stupidities, from his Syria WMD non-offer to boycotting the solidarity march after the Charlie Hebdo massacre and then trying to compensate by flying in James Taylor to sing, “You’ve got a friend.” Less publicized though was his spectacular failure to negotiate “peace” between Israel and the Islamic terrorists of the Palestinian Authority who are still trying to destroy it.

The Ketchup Gigolo threw everything he had into making “peace”. Just like his effort to make peace with the Viet Cong and the Sandinistas, not to mention sundry other tyrants and terrorists, he went in assuming that the bad guys were the good guys and the good guys were the bad guys.

In the twisted mind under those Frankenstein hair plugs, peace is what happens when the bad guys win.

John Kerry didn’t try to implement the two-state solution that he keeps raving about by encouraging Israel and the Islamic terrorists to negotiate with each other. That would have been absurd. Instead he pretended to act as an intermediary between the two sides while actually representing only the PLO.

As one Israeli official said, “We discovered that throughout the entire period, the Americans didn’t actually talk to the Palestinians, only to us.” Why bother talking to the side that you’re already on?

But, just as it had in Nicaragua, that proved to be a serious mistake. While Kerry focused on pressuring Israel to make concessions, he, like Bill Clinton, hadn’t figured out how to get the Islamic terrorists to accept them.

Kerry brought his wonderful peace proposal to Mahmoud Abbas, a fine graduate of the USSR’s Peoples’ Friendship University, along with Timochenko, the head of the Marxist FARC narcoterrorists. Kerry would, very predictably, meet with Timochenko earlier this year, despite his own State Department having a $5 million reward on his head, in yet another failed bid to force an ally to make peace with terrorists.

Excitedly, the traitor revisited the scene of his past treason, meeting with Abbas in Paris, to give him the good news. Kerry expected the terrorist leader to be overjoyed as the gift that he had brought over. Instead the terrorist turned up his nose. Kerry desperately passed the gift, of land, blood and security, extracted from Israelis, over to Obama to give to Abbas. Obama and Abbas met for two hours in the Oval Office. Abbas told Obama he might think it over and call. Like the bad date he was, he never did.

Kerry desperately wanted to be friends with the terrorists. But the terrorists didn’t want to play. “I have exhausted my time with John Kerry,” Abbas cried. “This is it.”

Instead of negotiating any kind of peace, Kerry relayed blackmail threats from the terrorists. If Israel didn’t release large numbers of convicted terrorists with innocent blood on their hands, Abbas would go to the UN. Israel released most of the prisoners. Abbas went to the UN anyway. Kerry went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and blamed Israel for the lack of peace.

Since then John Kerry has nursed a special hatred for the Jewish State.

When Muslim terrorists murdered Jews, John Kerry blamed Israel. When ISIS kills other Muslims, John Kerry also blamed Israel. And when John Kerry’s creme brulee donut is stale, he also blames the Jews.

And you can understand why.

John Forbes Kerry isn’t just a traitor. He’s a failed traitor. His treason has never amounted to anything except publicity stunts. The terrorists and tyrants used him, abused him and threw him away. For five decades, Kerry has been trying to defect, but no one, not the Viet Cong, the Sandinistas, Assad, FARC, Iran or the PLO would take him and keep him.

Israel was his last big bid to achieve something. And it failed. And like Carter, he blames the Jews.

Kerry and the rest of Obama Inc. have tried to cloak their campaign against Israel by claiming that they are only attacking the Jewish State because they are just so very devoted to peace.

The Hero of the Purple Band-Aid has denounced Jews living in Israel as the “obstacle to peace”. But the peace that Kerry and his boss are devoted is not the peace of coexistence, but of the triumph of evil. Instead of trying to mediate, Kerry, as always, took the side of the terrorists. He failed because it is the terrorists who refuse to make peace. It does not take a Solomon to understand this simple truth.

But it takes a radical leftist to persistently refuse to see it.

The greatest obstacle to peace is not Israel. It’s John Kerry. It’s all the other leftists like him who believe that peace comes when the terrorists win, not when they are defeated. There could have been peace long ago if Israel had been allowed to win. Instead the promised two-state solution peace has never materialized. And instead of admitting that they were wrong, the peacemakers blame Israel.

It’s either that or admit that the false promises of peace were only an excuse for destroying Israel.

The obstacle to peace does not come from Israel. It comes from its enemies. It comes from the PLO and Hamas, from Obama and from Kerry. Kerry and his ilk believe that peace is what happens when the bad guys win. But that’s their big lie. Peace is what happens when the terrorists and their allies lose.

Originally posted on FrontPageMag.

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Will Margot Wallstrom Be Known as the Mother of Palestine?

Margot Wallstrom, the outspoken anti-Israel Swedish Foreign Minister is at it again. This time she sent out the following tweet as she left a meeting in Ramallah:

And then there is this one:

Of course Wallstrom is not new to the anti-Israel camp. 2 years ago she accused Israel of executing “Palestinians” without trial.  She has continuously attacked Jews living in Judea and Samaria as “obstacles to peace” while ignoring terror attacks carried out by Arab terrorists against Jews in Israel.

With Sweden taking the reigns at the UN Security Council after January 1st Wallstrom is more than ready to take aim at Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

“We discussed our (upcoming) presidency,” Wallstrom said after meetings in Ramallah with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, according to the Swedish Expressen newspaper. “We hope that it will be possible for the Security Council to adopt a resolution on the settlements.”

All of this would be typical of the EU and many of its more anti-Israel members. In most years these statements and votes barely cause a yawn, but with Obama looking to make some sort of world changing impact before he leaves office in 33 days, abstaining from a Swedish resolution that would in effect delineate the final borders of Israel is all too possible.  If the resolution passes Wallstrom will become the mother of Palestine. A mantle she will cherish.

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As Trump Charts New Mideast Policy, White House Contemplates Sabotage

Originally published under the title “Trump Is No Obama on Middle East Policy.”

After their first meeting, with cameras broadcasting their every word across the globe, President Obama turned to Donald Trump and pledged “to do everything we can to help you succeed.” Media outlets across the spectrum fawned over his magnanimity.

Guess again. Washington DC insiders widely expect the president to launch a bold effort to constrain the president-elect’s options in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by supporting unilateral international recognition of Palestinian statehood, possibly in the UN Security Council.

U.S. policy has long maintained that a Palestinian state should be established in conjunction with a comprehensive peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

While Israel has said time and time again that it is eager to live alongside a Palestinian state, the Palestinian leadership has remained unwilling to make the necessary concessions for a final status agreement, such as accepting the existence of a Jewish state alongside their own. Indeed, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has steadfastly maintained that millions of Palestinians must have the “right of return” to Israel – a move that would effectively eviscerate a Jewish Israel.

Instead of pursuing a peaceful path to statehood, Palestinian leaders have incited violence against Israel, while trying to persuade the rest of the world to recognize Palestinian statehood in the absence of peace.

Amid surging anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, European governments have come under intense pressure to recognize a Palestinian state. Sweden was the first Western European government to do so in 2014. Legislatures in the United Kingdom, Spain, and France have passed (largely non-binding) resolutions doing so.

Successive U.S. administrations have vocally opposed unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood by the United Nations and other international actors, maintaining correctly that it would irreparably damage the prospects for a viable, secure two-state solution.

In a position paper released last week, the Trump campaign emphasized that “the U.S. cannot support the creation of a new state where terrorism is financially incentivized, terrorists are celebrated by political parties and government institutions, and the corrupt diversion of foreign aid is rampant,” pledged to veto any UN action that unfairly targets Israel, and affirmed that Palestinians must first “renounce violence against Israel or recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” before being granted statehood.

In seeking to overturn longstanding precedent and thwart the expressed policy positions of his successor, Obama presumably hopes that supporting (or not vetoing) a UN Security Council resolution on Palestinian statehood will create an irreversible fait accompli that will eventually spur Israel to make concessions, like a settlement freeze, which will in turn strengthen moderates on the Palestinian side.

It’s the same thinking that led the United States to make concession after concession in the Iran nuclear deal, and it is likely to backfire in the same way. Unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state will communicate to Palestinian leaders that they do not need to concede anything and validate the use and incitement of violence, vindicating hardliners.

Until the Palestinian leadership can recognize and accept a Jewish state in the land of Israel, the United States must continue working to prevent international recognition of a Palestinian state.

A Trump national security adviser warned the Obama administration last week not “to try to push through agenda items that are contrary to the president-elect’s positions.” President-elect Trump should follow up by publicly reaffirming that his administration will vigorously oppose unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood and will not be bound by commitments the current administration has made or will make regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The rest of us should do our part by calling on President Obama to respect the will of voters and allow his duly-elected successor to chart a new course in Mideast policy without any impediments.

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Let’s All Go To The Arafat Museum

Originally posted on Sultan Knish.

On the anniversary of his death, it is important that we remember Yasser Arafat (8 or 9 other names, including the ubiquitous Mohammed, may be added as needed) as a murderer, a liar and a thief.

Twelve years ago, Arafat, the Egyptian terrorist leader who founded an imaginary country on mass murder and our foreign aid, died covered in his own vomit and diarrhea. The possible causes of death, in order of probability, were AIDS, according to his private doctor and the head of the PFLP terror group, an Israeli laser, according to the Palestinian ambassador to Sri Lanka, thallium poisoning by Israel, polonium poisoning by his Palestinian rivals and the trained ape from Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue.

The investigation into Arafat’s death went on for over a decade and dragged in the Institut de Radiophysique in Switzerland, Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency and a mysteriously nameless team of French experts. Arafat’s “temporary” mausoleum, a building that looks like a Florida motel outhouse built on a giant scale, was rummaged and his rotting remains were poked over by three international teams who could agree on nothing except that the dead terrorist was probably dead.

Probably. It was hard to tell if Arafat was alive even back when he was still breathing and ranting.

After a decade of the minions of the occupying Muslim terror regime in Ramallah accusing each other, and occasionally the Jews with their lasers, the Arafat Museum has finally debuted the centerpiece of its exhibit, the dead Egyptian terrorist’s bedroom. Last month the museum managed to wrest Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize from Hamas without anyone being dragged behind a motorcycle or thrown off a building. This marked a major improvement in relations between the two aspiring Palestinian terror states. If that doesn’t merit handing out more peace prizes to everyone involved, what would?

When Hamas seized Gaza, they looted Arafat’s headquarters and stole everything. They stole Arafat’s fake military uniforms. They took his wife’s Christian Louboutin shoes which go for $675 at Saks Fifth Avenue. They took all the furniture. They even pried the tiles out of the walls and stole all his pipes.

And they took his Nobel Peace Prize.

According to Arafat’s nephew, some of the loot wound up in the bazaars of Gaza where the cycle of theft inherent in the Palestinian Authority continued.

Hamas is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and Arafat was a former Muslim Brotherhood man. And yet his former Brothers sold his pants and schmattas in the streets of Gaza only a few years after he was laid low by a polonium AIDS laser. If you can’t trust a Muslim Brother not to pawn your Nobel Peace Prize in exchange for a lightly stained area rug and an unlocked iPhone, whom can you trust?

The bankrupt Palestinian Authority, which is always begging for foreign aid, will see the opening of the pricey 28,000 square feet Arafat Museum. Visitors will be able to view his gun and what the Associated Press touchingly describes as “the small bedroom where their longtime leader Yasser Arafat spent his final years” with “only a single bed and small closet that barely holds four suits”.

Only four suits. It’s almost enough to make you weep. The other suits must have been stolen by
Hamas.

In real life, Arafat’s wealth was estimated at between $1 and $1.3 billion. At his peak, it might have been as high as $3 billion. His fashionable wife lived in Paris on a $100,000 a month allowance. Her personal refugee camp was located in a 19 room suite at the five-star Bristol Hotel. It’s unknown if UNRWA aid workers brought her caviar and champagne or if that indignity fell to the hotel staff.

Arafat wasn’t just good to his wife. He was also good to Bill Clinton’s wife. Arafat presented Hillary with gold and diamond necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Like the Bristol, Hillary’s diamonds and every act of racist mass murder perpetrated by Arafat’s terrorists was paid for by American taxpayers.

The Muslim settlers occupying ’67 Israel might have enjoyed a tour of the Bristol far more than a shrine that pretends Arafat wasn’t a billionaire who got ridiculously rich off his killing sprees. The “humble” bedroom is part of a museum, which also looks like a Florida motel, whose costs were estimated at $15 million and has been underway in some form or another since 2008.

Back when Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, broke ground on it, it was supposed to take 18 months. But there’s usually more money to be made in not doing things in the West Bank than in doing them. And no one seems to be able to account for where the money is coming from which makes the project a true tribute to Arafat’s management of the Palestinian Authority.

But maybe it took that long to gather all those “thousands of personal belongings” of the dead mass murderer from the Gaza bazaars to deposit them in a museum dedicated to the Father of Palestine.

The entire thing is only temporary. Arafat is only temporarily resting in pieces, after being poked over by the French, the Russians and the Swiss, until his Jihadists, with some aid from the United Nations, conquer Jerusalem and relocate his remains, which by now can probably fit in a Ziploc bag.

Then Arafat will rise from his grave and demand that Hamas return his stolen pants.

It is important to properly memorialize Arafat. He was a murderer, a liar and a thief. And everyone knew it. The foreign ambassadors and leaders he dealt with knew it. Bill Clinton, who made him a world leader, knew it. You couldn’t spend 5 minutes with him before he tried to steal your wallet. Or, as was the case with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, grope your leg and then give you a soulful kiss.

Arafat was a con artist who was the son of a failed con artist. He was born in Cairo and died near Paris. His first adult visit to Israel was with a band of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood terrorists who tried to attack Israeli farms, but despite facing only a handful of Jews armed with guns, they lost and had to run back home. Arafat’s military track record didn’t get any better from there.

He didn’t beat Israel on the battlefield. Instead he lied and cried. He played the victim often enough that world leaders decided that the best way to end his terrorism was to give him a terrorist state in Israel. Like the Holocaust, “Palestine” happened because millions followed a psychotic con artist’s murderous fantasies while much of the rest of the world defended him and made excuses for him. The “Palestinian” disaster has cost the lives of thousands, Jews, Christians and Muslims, who do not receive a fraction of the tributes that the architects of that national and international disaster do.

Arafat has a museum. The latest tribute to the Muslim mass murderer is funded by American taxpayers. Meanwhile his victims lie in quiet humble graves. No visitors tour their little bedrooms or note how few suits they had. No experts exhume their remains to determine the causes of their deaths.

But we know what killed them. Palestine did.

Arafat’s Big Lie, a lie so big it would have made Goebbels stand up and cheer, invented an imaginary country. And then it used that country as a call to genocide and an excuse for mass murder.

Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa was a mediocre murderer. He was a talented thief. But he was a truly unequaled liar. His lie still lives on. It has a flag. It receives billions in foreign aid every year. It is moving closer to recognition at the United Nations. Synagogues are bombed and Jewish students are assaulted on college campuses because of that lie.

Why was Arafat’s Palestine lie so successful? He told everyone what they wanted to hear.

The xenophobic Muslim majority in the region wanted to pretend that its efforts to exterminate the Jews were the noble strivings of a minority rather than the abusive atrocities of a racist majority.

The European left wanted to sweep away the Holocaust to legitimize Antisemitism all over again.

Western leaders wanted another Czechoslovakia they could carve up, Munich style, and serve up on a platter to head off the age of international Islamic terror that they could see rising on the horizon.

That collection of lies, shameful treacheries and bigotry is why Palestine exists. It all deserves a proper museum. A museum of lies and massacres that would hold Arafat’s looted Nobel Peace Prize and the names of his victims. That would showcase the mansions of Gaza and the lies of the press. It would remind us that that the Holocaust was built not on mere force, but on liars and their accomplices.

And there could be no better name for such an institution than the Arafat Museum.

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US Funds PA Terrorists, Winks at Abbas Corruption, While Chiding Israel

The US and others, while suggesting they are strong supporters of Israel and its need for security, in reality are not promoting peace. Their policies are actually sustaining and rewarding terror.

Let me explain…

President Obama, for example, has repeatedly stated throughout his administration that America’s commitment to Israel’s security is “unshakable.” No doubt these are reassuring words to Israel and its friends around the world. However,  his actions contradict his words.

How so? It has been the policy of the US and others to condemn the ‘settlements’ and the ‘occupation’ as the main obstacles to achieving peace with the Arabs. For those who subscribe to said view, where were the ‘settlements’ or ‘occupation’ in 1948 or 1967? They did not exist.

However, in order to see the folly of blaming the lack of peace on these issues, we should look at what the statements imply:

  1. They suggest the US is attempting to be balanced. This is meant to appeal to the Arab world which thinks the US has been too supportive of Israel for many years.
  2. They allow the US to avoid tackling the real issues which are preventing peace.

Placing accurate blame

The Arabs flatly refuse to accept the right of Israel to exist. The charters of the PLO, Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’s own party Fatah, all require its destruction. Is the US devoting anywhere near as much attention to combating this as they are about condemning ‘settlements?’ Absolutely not.  Abbas has repeatedly stated he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state.  Israeli leadership has consistently committed to recognizing a state for the so-called ‘Palestinians,’ yet is the US applying equal pressure on him to recognize Israel? Again, no.

Another issue is money.

The US and others believe if there is measurable improvement in the overall economic environment of the Arabs it would reduce their “frustration,” which many believe motivates their terror attacks against Israelis. For the uninformed Arab, terror against Jews has been ongoing since the rebirth of Israel in 1948. Moreover, such statements carry with them an implied justification for the terror and provide additional incentive for more of them. In my view, there exists no moral equivalence between justice and terror.

Moreover, after Israel is forced for the umpteenth time to neutralize murderers of innocent civilians, we hear the ever-present catcalls that they are using disproportionate force. My response to this is something I heard years ago- “if the response to terrorism is seen as less acceptable than terrorism itself, we invite more of it.”

If the Arabs wish to express frustration regarding their poor economic condition, I say they have that right. However, they should be expressing it at the appropriate party, and that is not Israel.

The responsibility of the economic plight of the Arabs belongs to their own leadership.

When Yasser Arafat formed the Palestinian Authority in 1994, he promised new hospitals, clinics, educational institutions and improvements to the general infrastructure. He also promised greater employment opportunities. However, instead of delivering on his promises, he took complete control of all media, as well as the flow of money. None of the promised improvements took place. With virtually no independent oversight this became a recipe for corruption.

He and his cronies systematically stole huge sums of money, while the average Arab remained in abject poverty, which is the case today.

Such information rarely gets much attention, and certainly not in Arab media, heaven forbid!

Tracking the money

Here are some rather incredible facts:

Since its formation, the Palestinian Authority has received over $31 billion in foreign aid. In 2014 alone they received well over $2 billion. Of that amount the US provides the most by far- roughly $400 million, followed by the European Commission ($140 million), Saudi Arabia ($103 million), the UK ($95 million), etc. [see chart]  In fact the Arabs have received more money than any other group of people in human history. If you take into account historic inflation, the PA has received more money than the US gave to rebuild all of Europe under the Marshall Plan after WW ll,” according to Calev Myers of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice who has studied this extensively. The funds were given to 17 countries with a combined population of 300,000,000. By comparison the number of Arabs living in Judea/Samaria, commonly referred to as the West Bank, is just under 3 million, or equal to 1% of post WWll European population. Yet they have been given more money than all of Europe!

With respect to Arafat, while the average Arab suffered, his wife Suha who lived in Paris received $200,000 per month from him. She also is alleged to have received numerous bulk payments, one of which was $11 million according to reports.  Where did this money come from? More important, what happened with the vast amount of international aid given to the PA?

When Arafat died in 2004 an investigation showed he had $1 billion stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. Plus, he supposedly was in control of up to $6 billion in assets.  His widow refused to reveal the location of the stolen money unless she was awarded a ‘finder’s fee.’ Rumor is the investigative team paid her as much as $40 million. The team was led by Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas Palace in Ramallah
The Presidential Guest Palace in Surda, Ramallah being built by Mahmoud Abbas at a cost of $13 Million

Since then, Abbas has traveled down the same road of corruption of his predecessor. His personal wealth is said to be as much as $1 billion. However, since he is not subject to financial accountability, who really knows? He is currently constructing a $13 million mansion for himself.

Another area of fiscal irresponsibility is the PA owes roughly $300 – 400 million to Israel in unpaid electricity bills. Given Mr. Abbas’s accumulated stolen wealth, no doubt he could write a personal check for the entire amount.

In reality the economic well-being of the Arabs has long been in their own hands. However, they have never been able to realize it because their leadership has literally stolen it. Meanwhile, western leaders bemoan the presumed poverty driven frustration as the reason for terror, while international money keeps lining the pockets of corrupt leadership, and the average Arab continues to live in poverty.

Someone needs to have a blunt conversation with Mahmoud Abbas.

As for the Arab health care system, it remains so under developed many of them in desperation come to Israel for needed care. Indeed, in 2014 when tensions were extremely high due to the disappearance of three Jewish teens, who were later found murdered, Abbas’s wife was having surgery in an Israeli hospital. Plus, in the midst of the current spate of terror, which Abbas has fueled with hateful rhetoric, his brother-in-law had life-saving surgery in Israel. Israel even treated the granddaughter of Ismael Haniyeh, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip.

International aid funding murderers

Aside from pilfering money meant to improve the lot of the average Arab, there is another disturbing aspect of how international aid is being used by the PA.

Approximately 16% of their total budget is designated to reward terrorists and their families. This is done under what is called The Law of the Prisoner.

Here’s how it works:

If an Arab commits a crime against an Israeli and is imprisoned he becomes eligible to earn a large monthly income. It can be as much as $3,500, ($42,000 annually) which is five times greater than the average Arab earns. The monthly income is on a sliding scale. The most heinous crimes get the highest monthly stipend.

You’ve heard the old saying “crime doesn’t pay?” These terrorists are proof it does pay. US and European taxpayers are the ones who are providing the “pay.”

Abbas’s actions are nothing short of criminal, plus he is guilty of using international humanitarian aid to reward murderers.

While the likelihood of him being imprisoned is remote, here are few suggestions for the US and others:

  1. Stop blaming Israeli ‘settlements’ and ‘occupation’ for the lack of progress toward peace.
  2. Demand Abbas condemn terror against Israelis and take steps to eliminate it.
  3. Require mutual national recognition and hold him accountable if he refuses.
  4. Demand the PLO, Fatah and Hamas amend their charters which call for Israel’s destruction. (no legitimate peace partner is party to a charter calling for the others destruction)
  5. Insist the PA set up independent oversight and engage in complete financial transparency and accountability.
  6. Demand the Law of the Prisoner be scrapped. Inform the PA financial aid will be terminated if murderers continue to be financially rewarded.

At the end of the day the effort of the US to appear balanced by maintaining the status quo is not only failing to move the peace process forward, it is actually perpetuating an environment which will never produce peace.

What is needed is for world leaders, especially the US, is to get blunt with Abbas as well as the Arabs, and stop trying to persuade Israel to further compromise its security by rewarding those who uncompromisingly seek its destruction with land and money.

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Jerusalem: The United Capital of Palestine

Sometimes your enemies can teach you something.  In fact, many times they can teach you something.  Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen) has now stood up as the ultimate Palestinian patriot.  It’s true, he has aspired to that before, but has always fallen short. Incitement on PA TV just doesn’t cut it when compared to Hamas.  Renaming signs after terrorists cannot compare to actually planning and executing the attacks like Hamas and ISIS does.  So what’s left for Abbas?

Abbas has never retreated from bombastic verbiage.  His latest, is that Jerusalem belongs to “Palestine.”  Now that is not surprise. This time Abbas drew a red line for his own people.

“Anyone who accepts a Palestinian state without Jerusalem as its capital is a traitor,” Abbas said.

How refreshing. I have to say, at least Abbas can be admired for standing up and showing us what it means to be a patriot.  It’s true, our own leaders have said Jerusalem is the united capital of Israel, but we have never heard Bibi Netanyahu call Isaac Herzog a traitor for advocating the division of Jerusalem.

Ideology means something or at least it should.  The problem with our leaders is that the words leaving their mouths seem to be nothing more than noise.  We have to be willing to be as fervent with our belief sets as our enemies or we won’t succeed in preserving our inheritance. This is not to say we should knock the other side out using violence. Our enemies can raise that flag, but we have to believe strong enough in our convictions that we call out our internal opposition for what they are, traitors.

In no way am I referring to positions concerning, health care, infrastructure, taxes, or the economy.  These are agnostic policy choices that should be made based on professionalism.  I am referring to Israel’s future and its connection to its past.  When a politician is determined to trade away our national heritage as if it is a mere policy decision, yes that person is a traitor.  When he or she supports foreign influence that has caused the death and security deterioration of the nation, yes that person is a traitor.

“He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.” – Edmund Burke

Since the beginning of the Zionist Revolution and the Jewish people’s nascent liberation the political class has been afflicted by a ghetto philosophy, this dhimmitude wrought upon the Jewish nation after years in exile has yet to be shed.  Advancement within the nation has occurred because the Arab population within and without the Land of Israel has forced the political class’s hands.  We see this in 1948, 1967, and beyond. Despite Israel’s overwhelming strength, the government has never forced true sovereignty throughout Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. The Arab leadership are here in many ways in order to refine us and make us reach to the next level.  If not the ghetto we have created would be far too comfortable to crack the complacency of ideological hollowness

Mahmoud Abbas may be a murderer, Holocaust denier, and thief, but he understands the need of the Arab street to cling to its absolutism, because for them there are things far more important than simply peace.