Tag: Palestinian

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Pamela Geller: Israel should never have recognized “Palestinian” as a Nationality

We had the privilege of interviewing Pamela Geller and learning her views of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the growing terror wave in Israel and worldwide, and how faulty policies are responsible for many of the current conflicts.
Pamela Geller’s activism on behalf of human rights has won international notice. She is President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) and Stop Islamization of America (SIOA). She is the author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. She is the editor and chief of Atlas Shrugs. Pamela is also a regular columnist for World Net Daily, the American Thinker, Breitbart.com and other publications.

1. What got you focused on Radical Islam? What drives you? Do you ever fear for your life?

9/11. I wanted to know who had attacked my country, and began to study and investigate. What drives me is a determination to defend freedom and individual rights, on which this country is based. I have a fatwa on my head from ISIS, but I will not stop telling the truth.

2. Why do you focus so much on exposing the threat of extremist Islam and is anyone even listening? Do organizations such as CAIR look at you as a threat?

I focus on it because it is the #1 threat to freedom today, and this threat is being obfuscated by our political and media elites. Yes, many are listening, and many are just as concerned as I am, but we are not given a voice in the mainstream media. CAIR is very threatened by what I do because I expose truths they are working to cover up.

3. What is your take on why we are seeing an increase of terrorism around the globe and in Israel?

Because of the weakness of the U.S. and the West. Obama showed the jihadis that he would not act energetically against them. They can act with impunity and he will do nothing. Ayn Rand said, “The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.”

4. Are the reasons for the terror wave in Israel the same as what happened in California and Paris? Or is the “occupation” and “protecting Al Aqsa” the real reason behind Palestinian terror?

Yes, exactly the same reason: the jihad to subjugate unbelievers under the hegemony of Islamic rule. Palestinian terror is motivated only by the Islamic idea that Islam must dominate everywhere.

5. In your opinion, why is the world so focused on Israel?

Israel has been the subject of a skillful and relentless propaganda barrage designed to demonize it in the eyes of the world.

6. Are Israeli leaders hurting Israel’s image? Should they be stronger in both voice and deed?

No matter how strong Israeli leaders are, they will still be demonized by the international media, which has become a tool of the jihad force. They should indeed be stronger, but whenever they are strong, they are vilified to such a degree that it hinders their ability to act.

7. How did the Palestinians gain control of the narrative in the Middle East? Why are they seen as the underdog?

They co-opted the left’s narrative of “resistance” to “oppression” and won over the left to their side. The whole idea of the “Palestinian” people was created in order to give the impression of a tiny Muslim population facing a massive Israeli force, and to co-opt the idea that Israel was the underdog against massive neighboring Arab Muslim states.

8. What can Israel do to regain the narrative?

Israel should never have recognized “Palestinian” as a nationality, and should continue to point out that this is a people with no history, manufactured for propaganda purposes. “Palestinian”is a marketing term for Jew hatred.

9. I believe left wing students on college campuses, if explained the facts behind what is going on, would swing to supporting Israel. Do we have to do a better job? Or are there other factors driving their decision to back what amounts to be a glorified terrorist entity?

Yes, but the main problem is that the campuses are dominated by left-wing propaganda. The playing field is not even. Some groups are doing a good job but it is hard for them to get a fair hearing, equal access, etc. And Muslim students are increasingly physically menacing on campuses.

10. What do you suggest Israel do to prevent future terror attacks? Some have proposed deporting terrorist family members. Your thoughts?

Stand strong. Make no concessions. “Land-for-peace” initiatives will never bring peace. Deporting the family members may have some limited value, but Israel really should confront the jihad terror ideology. Islamic Jew-hatred is the root cause of the war against the Jews.

11. Do you believe a 2-state solution is feasible? What are the world powers trying to achieve by pushing for a 2-state solution considering the fact that it is not in the best interest of Israel nor the Palestinians?

No, a Palestinian State would only be used as a jihad base to launch more jihad attacks against Israelis. World powers push for it because they ignore Palestinian media’s frequent genocidal statements, and pretend that this will solve the problem. In fact it will only weaken Israel and strengthen the jihad.

12. Feel free to add any other comments or topics that you feel our audience would benefit from, including how they can help you and the work you are doing.

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Dismantling the Right of Return

The Palestinian demand for the “Right of Return” has long been a core belief set to the broader peace narrative in relation to a permanent settlement with Israel.  On the face of it, the demand seems pretty solid, that is of course if one buys into the Palestinian narrative without questioning the very basis of its claims.

Palestinians claim the following:

  • Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. -Article 13(2), Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948).
  • The Geneva Conventions of 1949.
  • The General Assembly, Having considered further the situation in Palestine … Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.” -UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (11 December 1948)
  • United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3236 which “reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return”.
  • Resolution 242 from the UN affirms the necessity for “achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem.”
  • Supporters of the Palestinian right of return maintain that “the right of return for the 1948 Palestinian refugees still exists according to international law. It exists despite the language of the Oslo agreements, insufficient as they are in this regard, and despite the position of the current Israeli government. Palestinian refugees should be free to seek their right to repatriation, regardless of what the PLO acquiesces to, so long as UN Resolution 194 remains in force”.
  • No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country. -Article 12, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(23 March 1976).

The main crux  behind using many of the above statements lies with attaching the Palestinian Right of Return to something national.

After all, Israel has the Law of Return, which designates any Jew or a person that has 1/4 Jewish ancestry as eligible to return to his/her ancestral homeland.  The Palestinians argue that if a Jew can return after a hiatus of of 1,700 to 2,00 years then they who were here in between should certainly be aloud back.

Essentially speaking the Palestinian claim and statements from international treaties that seem to support it do so because refugees and their return depend on origins within a recognized national entity.

Between the years 1917 and 1948, as the modern Nation States of the Middle East were being created by world powers, no one believed there to be unique nation called Palestine.  In fact all references to Palestine connected the word to Jews and their inalienable rights to form a Nation State their. Why?  Because simply speaking, the current Palestinians had no Nation in the Levant.  This is not to say they were not there, they were or at least a percentage of them were, but they had no previous national claim to the Land.  Some were considered Syrians and other Egyptians, but none of them used the word Palestinian or connected themselves to a distinct national heritage in defining themselves.

Ryan Bellerose, a native Metas from Canada wrote an excellent piece this week refuting Palestinian claims to being indigenous. National indigenous rights are a key component hen tackling issues connected to refugees and this is why Palestinians who formed their collective narrative as an anti-narrative to Israel and Jewish rights there are some forceful in trying to prove that themselves had some sort of national collective experience that was taken from them.  If not, then their claims to deserving a right of return falls through.

One cannot build a national narrative whose sole foundation is the negation of another people’s narrative. That is not a legitimate narrative nor is it something that deserves the right of return.

It is clear that a right of return should belong to the one cultural group that exerted itself time and time again as the national sovereign in the Land of Israel and that is he people of Israel.  It is true individual rights should be given to all persons that live in the Land of Israel.  That does not make them a historically indigenous people nor does it give them the right to claim a return generations later.