Tag: PLO

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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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‘Palestinian’ Agenda Based on Fabrication and Destruction

While talk of a comprehensive Arab, Israeli peace agreement seems never ending, newly elected President Trump has described securing such an agreement as the “ultimate deal.” However there is ample reason why no deal has been struck, and why it will likely remain beyond reach.  An honest assessment reveals why.

The most important factor in reaching an agreement is both sides must want peace. However, in this conflict indisputable evidence shows only one side actually wants genuine peace and co-existence.  A sober look at the facts reveals the Arab Palestinians have no interest in peace. In order to draw reasoned conclusions it’s also essential to separate fact from fiction.  

Who’s Who?

The Arab ‘Palestinians’ are in a different category than the rest of the Arab world, which consists of 22 sovereign Middle Eastern nations. They do not have the distinction of being a sovereign nation, which they feel they are entitled to. However, shouldn’t we first understand who they are, as well as their motives?

They are a mix of Jordanians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrian, Sudanese etc. who settled within the area known as the British Mandate of Palestine. This land encompassed 43,000 square miles and was promised to the Jews as a national homeland in the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Yet, in 1922 the British turned over 75% of it to create the nation of Transjordan, (today’s Jordan). This left roughly 25% or 11,000 square miles of land to be dealt with.

In 1947 the British decided to leave the area and turned the issue over to the United Nations, which by a 72% majority voted  to partition two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab.  However, the surrounding Arab nations rejected the vote and attacked the new Jewish state one day after its independence intending to destroy it. This is all indisputable fact.

The coming storm

Regional leadership directed local Arabs living in the area to relocate temporarily, while the armies of the surrounding countries carried out their plan to destroy the UN partitioned Jewish state. Thinking they would soon be able to return and grab a huge windfall the majority of Arabs chose to leave.

However, their destructive aspirations failed, and the tiny nation of Israel not only was reborn, it remains…. and flourishes.

One can only lament how different history might have been if the Arab nations chose to accept the UN partition vote. Yet, they chose war and have never taken responsibility for their action. What’s worse is the nations of the world have never required it of them.

So what happened to those Arabs who left hoping the Jews would be wiped out allowing them to reclaim their homes, plus those of the defeated Jews? Many ended up in “no man’s land,” which gave birth to the so called “Palestinian“ refugees.” Yet are they truly refugees? They did not leave with the intention of relocating elsewhere to start a new life as refugees typically do. They left because they were hoping the Jewish state would be destroyed and they could return to claim what was theirs, plus what wasn’t theirs. An honest assessment disqualifies them from being classified as “refugees.”  It was nothing less than bloodthirsty greed.

Since then they have portrayed themselves as victims deserving of compensation; Not from the Arab nations who directed them to leave in order to launch their attack, but from Israel or Britain.  If anyone is to blame for their plight it surely rests with Arabs, not the Jews. Unquestionably their fate was driven by hatred, greed and destructive intentions.

Have they ever admitted this? No. Instead they went on the offensive and to this day the Arab nations and the ‘Palestinians’ lay blame elsewhere. This is precisely what Yasser Arafat did when he founded the first ‘Palestinian’ terror group in 1964- the PLO. He blamed the Jews, and took no responsibility for the intent of the Arabs to destroy the Jewish state. He also rejected the United Nations partitioning of a sovereign Arab state, because it meant the existence of a Jewish state, which he refused to accept. His PLO charter defined the “Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them null and void.” (PLO Charter Article 20)

Moreover, his organization’s charter specifically calls for the “Palestinian people to assert their absolute determination and firm resolution….to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and the right to return to it.” (PLO Charter Article 9)

So much for peaceful co-existence.

“Their Country”?

Moreover, what country is he talking about? The so-called ‘Palestinians’ did not have their own country. The area he is referring to was under the British Mandate and was turned over to the UN who voted to partition an Arab and Jewish state, which was rejected by the Arab nations. The fact is the ‘Palestinians’ never had “their own country,” to return to and “liberate.” They could have had a country if the UN partition was accepted. However, hatred of the Jews and refusal to accept the existence of a neighboring Jewish state outweighed the gift of having their own state.  This abhorrent fact renders Arafat’s statement about the existence of “their country” as a lie.

It should also be noted the Jews have had a constant presence here dating back over 3,000 years. Plus, since they were victorious in defending themselves in the Six Day War of 1967 international law allows them to claim the disputed land, which gave them the legal right to build communities.

It’s time to call a spade a spade. The entire premise on which the PLO was founded is a fabrication. There was never a ‘Palestinian’ country and no ‘Palestinian’ people. What is correct is there were Arabs of various ethnic origins living together with Jews in an area which was under the control of the British. Arafat himself for example, was a transplanted Arab Egyptian, not a ‘Palestinian.’

Part of the challenge of this unending conflict is separating fact from fiction. Suggesting the ‘Palestinians’ have the right to “liberate their country,” assumes they have or had one. They don’t and never did. This cannot be overstated. Any reference otherwise is pure fabrication. However, this has not stopped them from spreading outright lies and others from buying into it. This includes defining the land they claim as “occupied Palestinian territory,” while blaming Israel as the cause for a lack of peace.

The charters of all the ‘Palestinian’ terror groups, including Fatah, (which means ‘conquest’) the party of Mahmoud Abbas  don’t merely speak of self-determination within the area commonly referred to as the” West Bank.” Each charter places equal weight on the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel through armed struggle, and replacing it with one ‘Palestinian’ state.  It makes clear their goal is to eliminate the world’s only Jewish country, and replace it with another Muslim dominated country. This would bring the total to 23 in the Middle East, while the Jews would have none, and be subjected to live under Muslim rule in what used to be their own country.

If the community of nations decides to reward those who seek Israel’s destruction with nationhood, without requiring them to alter their charters, renounce terror and recognize the Jewish state of Israel, it will be a black mark on humanity.

Then again the community of nations has ample history of treating the Jews unfairly. Evidence today’s United Nations for starters….

More of Dan Calic’s articles are on his Facebook Page

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THE LESSONS OF THE HAMAS WAR

Israel’s strategic mistake.

The State Comptroller’s Report on Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s war with Hamas in the summer of 2014, is exceedingly detailed. The problem is that it addresses the wrong details.

Israel’s problem with Hamas wasn’t its tactics for destroying Hamas’s attack tunnels. Israel faced two challenges in its war with Hamas that summer. The first had to do with the regional and global context of the war. The second had to do with its understanding of its enemy on the ground.

War between Hamas and Israel took place as the Sunni Arab world was steeped a two-pronged existential struggle. On the one hand, Sunni regimes fought jihadist groups that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood movement. On the other, they fought against Iran and its proxies in a bid to block Iran’s moves toward regional hegemony.

On both fronts, the Sunni regimes, led by Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates, were shocked to discover that the Obama administration was siding with their enemies against them.

If Israel went into the war against Hamas thinking that the Obama administration would treat it differently than it treated the Sunni regimes, it quickly discovered that it was mistaken. From the outset of the battle between Hamas and Israel, the Obama administration supported Hamas against Israel.

America’s support for Hamas was expressed at the earliest stages of the war when then-secretary of state John Kerry demanded that Israel accept an immediate cease-fire based entirely on Hamas’s terms. This demand, in various forms, remained the administration’s position throughout the 50-day war.

Hamas’s terms were impossible for Israel. They included opening the jihadist regime’s land borders with Israel and Egypt, and providing it with open access to the sea. Hamas demanded to be reconnected to the international banking system in order to enable funds to enter Gaza freely from any spot on the globe. Hamas also demanded that Israel release its terrorists from its prisons.

If Israel had accepted any of Hamas’s cease-fire terms, its agreement would have constituted a strategic defeat for Israel and a historic victory for Hamas.

Open borders for Hamas means the free flow of armaments, recruits, trainers and money to Gaza. Were Hamas to be connected to the international banking system, the jihadist regime would have become the banking center of the global jihad.

The Obama administration’s support for Hamas was not passive.

Obama and Kerry threatened to join the Europeans in condemning Israel at the UN. Administration officials continuously railed against IDF operations in Gaza, insinuating that Israel was committing war crimes by insisting that Israel wasn’t doing enough to avoid civilian casualties.

As the war progressed, the administration’s actions against Israel became more aggressive. Washington placed a partial embargo on weapons shipments to Israel.

Then on July 23, 2014, the administration took the almost inconceivable step of having the Federal Aviation Administration ban flights of US carriers to Ben-Gurion Airport for 36 hours. The flight ban was instituted after a Hamas missile fell a mile from the airport.

The FAA did not ban flights to Pakistan or Afghanistan after jihadists on the ground successfully bombed airplanes out of the sky.

It took Sen. Ted Cruz’s threat to place a hold on all State Department appointments, and Canada’s Conservative Party government’s behind-the-scenes diplomatic revolt to get the flight ban rescinded.

The government and the IDF were shocked by the ferocity of the administration’s hostility. But to his great credit, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surmounted it.

Netanyahu realized that Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood nexus of jihad and also supported by Iran. As a result the Egyptians, Saudis and UAE rightly view it as a major enemy. Indeed, Egypt was in a state of war with Hamas in 2014. Gaza serves as the logistical base of the Salafist forces warring against the Egyptian military.

Netanyahu asked Sisi for help in blunting the American campaign for Hamas. Sisi was quick to agree and brought the Saudis and the UAE into an all-but-declared operational alliance with Israel against Hamas.

Since the Egyptians were hosting the cease-fire talks, Egypt was well-positioned to blunt Obama’s demand that Israel accept Hamas’s cease-fire terms.

In a bid to undermine Egypt, Obama and Kerry colluded with Hamas’s state sponsors Turkey and Qatar to push Sisi out of the cease-fire discussions. But due to Saudi and UAE support for Sisi and Israel, the administration’s attempts to sideline the Egyptians failed.

The cease-fire terms that were adopted at the end of the war contained none of Hamas’s demands. Israel had won the diplomatic war.

It was a strange victory, however. Netanyahu was never able to let the public know what was happening.

Had he informed the public, the knowledge that the US was backing Hamas would have caused mass demoralization and panic. So Netanyahu had to fight the diplomatic fight of his life secretly.

The war on the ground was greatly influenced by the diplomatic war. But the war on the ground was first and foremost a product of the nature of Hamas and of the nature of Hamas’s relationship with the PLO.

Unfortunately, the Comptroller’s Report indicates that the IDF didn’t understand either. According to the report, in the weeks before the war began, the then-coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eitan Dangot, told the security cabinet that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was at a crisis point and that hostilities were likely to break out if Israel didn’t allow humanitarian aid into the Strip.

On Wednesday we learned that Dangot’s view continues to prevail in the army. The IDF’s intelligence chief, Maj.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel must send humanitarian aid to Gaza to avert a war.

There is truth to the IDF’s position. Hamas did in fact go to war against Israel in the summer of 2014 because it was short on supplies.

After Sisi overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt the previous summer, he shut Egypt’s border with Gaza because Gaza was the logistical base of the insurgency against his regime. The closed border cut off Hamas’s supply train of everything from antitank missiles to cigarettes and flour.

The problem with the IDF’s view of Hamas is that providing aid to Gaza means supplying Hamas first and foremost. Every shipment into Gaza strengthens Hamas far more than it serves the needs of Gaza’s civilian population. We got a good look at Hamas’s contempt for the suffering of its people during Protective Edge.

After seeing the vast dimensions of Hamas’s tunnel infrastructure, the then-OC Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Sami Turgeman, told reporters that Hamas had diverted enough concrete to its tunnel project to build 200 kindergartens, two hospitals, 20 clinics and 20 schools.

Moreover, the civilian institutions that are supposed to be assisted by humanitarian aid all serve Hamas. During the war, three soldiers from the IDF’s Maglan unit were killed in southern Gaza when they were buried in rubble of a booby-trapped UNRWA clinic.

The soldiers were in the clinic to seal off the entry shaft of a tunnel that was located in an exam room.

Hamas had booby trapped the walls of the clinic and detonated it when the soldiers walked through the door.

All of the civilian institutions in Gaza, including those run by the UN, as well as thousands of private homes, are used by Hamas as part of its war machine against Israel.

So any discussion of whether or not to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza is not a humanitarian discussion. It is a discussion about whether or not to strengthen Hamas and reinforce its control over the population of Gaza.

This brings us to the goals of the war in Gaza in 2014. At the time, the government debated two possible endgames.

The first was supported by then-justice minister Tzipi Livni. Livni, and the Left more generally, supported using the war with Hamas as a means of unseating Hamas and restoring the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority to power in the area.

There were four problems with this notion. First, it would require Israel to reconquer Gaza.

Second, the Obama administration would never have agreed to an Israeli conquest of Gaza.

Third, Israel doesn’t have the forces to deploy to Gaza to retake control of the area without rendering its other borders vulnerable.

The final problem with Livni’s idea is that the PLO is no better than Hamas. From the outset of the war, the PLO gave Hamas unqualified support. Fatah militias in Gaza manned the missile launchers side by side with Hamas fighters. PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas represented Hamas at the cease-fire talks in Cairo. He led the political war against Israel in the West. And he financed Hamas’s war effort. Throughout the war Abbas sent a steady stream of funds to Gaza.

If PLO forces were returned to Gaza, they would behave precisely as they behaved from 2000 until Hamas kicked them out in 2007. That is, they would have acted as Hamas’s full partners in their joint war against Israel.

The second possible endgame involved a long-term strategy of defeating Hamas through attrition. This was the goal the government ended up partially adopting. The government ordered the IDF to destroy as much of Hamas’s missile arsenal as possible and to destroy its offensive tunnels into Israel. When the goals had been achieved to the point where the cost of opposing Obama grew greater than the battle gains, Netanyahu agreed to a cease-fire.

For the attrition strategy to have succeeded, the cease-fire would have only been the first stage of a longer war. For the attrition strategy to work, Israel needed to refuse to resupply Hamas. With its missile arsenal depleted and its tunnels destroyed, had Israel maintained the ban on supplies to Gaza, the residents would have revolted and Hamas wouldn’t have had the option of deflecting their anger onto Israel by starting a new war.

The IDF unfortunately never accepted attrition as the goal. From the Comptroller’s Report and Halevi’s statement to the Knesset this week, it appears the General Staff rejected attrition because it refuses to accept either the nature of Hamas or the nature of the PLO. Immediately after the cease-fire went into force, the General Staff recommended rebuilding Gaza and allowing an almost free flow of building supplies, including concrete, into Hamas’s mini-state.

The Comptroller’s Report is notable mainly because it shows that nearly three years after Protective Edge, official Israel still doesn’t understand what happened that summer. The problem with Hamas was never tactical. It was always strategic. Israel won the diplomatic battle because it understood the correlation of its strategic interests with those of the Sunni regimes.

It lost the military battle of attrition because it permitted Hamas to resupply.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post. 

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REAL ANTI-SEMITES AGAINST FAKE ANTI-SEMITISM

The left opposes bombing synagogues except when it supports it.

Keith Ellison is suddenly very concerned about anti-Semitism.

The former Nation of Islam member who appeared on stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammad (“that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating… just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew”) and defended the anti-Semitism of Louis Farrakhan (“Do you know some of these satanic Jews have taken over BET?”) is worried about the hatred of Jews.

The leading candidate to head the DNC who used to rant about, “European white Jews…  trying to oppress minorities all over the world” denounced President Trump for having, “taken… so long to even say the word ‘anti-Semitism.’”

How long did it take Ellison to stop defending the anti-Semitism of Farrakhan or of Joanne Jackson?

And Ellison isn’t through yet. He associates with CAIR, a hate group that has defended terrorists who target synagogues, and touts an endorsement from Jesse “Hymietown” Jackson.

Keith Ellison put out a press release after the bomb threats to Jewish centers declaring, “To all those who have felt threatened: I stand with you.”

Speaking of threats, the Minnesota Daily opinion editor, Michael Olenick, had described Ellison’s writing as “a genuine threat to the long-term safety and well-being of the Jewish people, a threat that history dictates must not be ignored.”

Except it was ignored.

Ellison is currently opposed to bomb threats to Jewish centers. That’s progress. But he’s closely allied with CAIR and other Islamist groups that have defended actual synagogue bomb plotters. CAIR has spread claims that the Muslim terrorists who plotted to bomb the Riverdale Jewish Center and Temple were really the victims of government entrapment.

When Ahmed Ferhani was arrested for a plot to attack a synagogue, CAIR held a rally to support him.

Linda Sarsour, who had described throwing stones at Jews as “the definition of courage”, accused the Trump administration of anti-Semitism. Sarsour claims to be raising money to repair a vandalized Jewish cemetery. While the campaign was touted by the media, it is unclear who the actual donors are.

What is clear is that Linda Sarsour supported Ahmed Ferhani. Sarsour insisted on calling the anti-Semitic terrorist a “boy” or a “kid”. She also defended the Riverdale Jewish Center bomb plotters.

At his trial, Ahmed Ferhani had boasted, “I intended to create chaos and send a message of intimidation and coercion to the Jewish population of New York City.”

“Look at the Jewish guy. You’re not smiling no more, you f___r. I hate those bastards. I hate those m______s. Those f____g Jewish bastards. I’d like to get one of those. I’d like to get a synagogue. Me. Yeah. Personally,” James Cromitie had ranted.

This is what Linda Sarsour and the left have been defending for some time now. The vast majority of the accounts you will read about Cromitie, the Newburgh Four, and Ahmed Ferhani, will be positive. Their innocence has been defended by CBS, HBO, the New York Times and countless other media outlets.

Like Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour, the media is momentarily opposed to burning and bombing synagogues.

It wasn’t always.

In New York City, a year before September 11, Muslims threw firebombs at a synagogue in the Bronx. “A bias-motivated attempt to firebomb a synagogue?” the New York Times asked. “Or a misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

If the cemetery vandals or JCC callers turn out to be Muslims, the media will ask whether desecrating Jewish graves was bias or a “misguided message critical of Israeli policies against Palestinians?”

That is what makes the sudden outpouring of concern about anti-Semitism shamelessly opportunistic.

Real anti-Semites are fighting fake anti-Semitism as a publicity stunt to attack the first administration to question the wisdom of financing the anti-Semitic mass murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists.

Linda Sarsour is a bigot who supports the anti-Semitic BDS movement and assorted Islamic terrorists. At a pro-Hamas event, she called for limiting friendships with Jews to opponents of the Jewish State. She is expected to share a stage at a BDS event with a woman who played a role in the murder of two Jewish college students.

This is anti-Semitism.

The left has a studied disinterest in true anti-Semitism. It views Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison as heroes. It makes excuses for Ahmed Ferhani or James Cromitie. It has opportunistically decided to exploit accusations of anti-Semitism to attack President Trump. But if the bomb threats to Jewish centers or the cemetery vandalism turn out to be the work of Muslims, then the hot potato will fall.

Stories about the incidents will quickly go away. The Muslim perpetrators will become victims of entrapment. HBO will air a documentary blaming the whole thing on overzealous FBI agents.

Anti-Semitism also has its fellow travelers. These are the people who are very selective about the anti-Semitism that they reject. They will oppose bombing synagogues only as long as the wrong sort of people are doing it. If the right sort of people bomb synagogues, the issue will become nuanced.

Bombing synagogues will suddenly cease to be a “black and white” issue.

The media has decided to spend a few weeks accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. Its sudden concern about fake anti-Semitism goes hand in hand with normalizing real anti-Semitism.

Fighting fake anti-Semitism consists of fake left-wing organizations, like the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, a group run by two gay rights activists from New Jersey that no one in the Jewish community had ever heard of before, getting airtime on the Fake News media to attack Trump.

Fighting real anti-Semitism would mean holding Linda Sarsour and Keith Ellison accountable for their long history of hating Jews instead of providing them with a platform for their publicity stunts.

The previous administration sent billions of dollars to two terror states, the Palestinian Authority and Iran, which finance the murder of Jews. Not a single of the organizations attacking Trump said a word of protest when our tax dollars were used to pay the salaries of Islamic terrorists in proportion to how many Jews they killed. None of them had a word to say when Obama sent billions in illegal payments to the Iranian paymasters of Hamas and Hezbollah in foreign currency on unmarked cargo planes.

Previous administrations had funded the Palestinian Authority. Obama was the first to fund the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s quite an accomplishment for a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Opposing anti-Semitism doesn’t mean opposing it from people you don’t like. That’s no great challenge. It means opposing it from those you do like. And the media likes Keith Ellison and Linda Sarsour.

The left has always celebrated its anti-Semites. Stop by an event celebrating the literary legacy of Amiri Baraka (“I got the extermination blues, jew-boys. I got the Hitler syndrome figured”) or Alice Walker (“May God protect you from the Jews”… “It’s too late, I already married one.”)

The left doesn’t oppose anti-Semitism. It opposes the right. It will accuse the right of anti-Semitism when convenient even while its ranks swell with the blackest and ugliest bigotry imaginable. It is rotten with anti-Semitism. It can’t and won’t reject it. It won’t even reject the murder of Jews, the bombing of synagogues and membership in anti-Semitic hate groups when its own heroes are doing it.

Behind the fake outrage is a real outrage. Behind the fake anti-Semitism is real anti-Semitism.

Originally Published on FrontPageMag.

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Why the So-Called ‘Palestinians’ Don’t Deserve a State

For decades the two-state solution has been repeatedly floated as the preferred goal of peace between Israel and the Arabs (‘Palestinians’). Yet it has never been realized. Accusations have been tossed around by various voices laying blame on both sides for the failure of the two-state solution to be implemented.

In light of the recent summit between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, it would appear the long standing position of the US promoting the two-state solution is fizzling out. In my opinion this is long overdue.

Simply put the so-called ‘Palestinians’ don’t deserve a state.

Allow me to make the case.

Perspective

In order to have an appreciation for today’s stalemate, it’s important to understand how it came about.

The concept of a two-state solution has already been attempted with the 1947 UN partition of two states, one Arab, one Jewish. (the original two-state solution) It failed. Why? The Arab nations rejected and ignored the resolution, attacking the fledgling Jewish state one day after it declared independence in 1948. Six decades and seven wars later (three with Hamas) what has changed?

A dramatic shift took place in 1967 when Yasser Arafat decided the Arabs who were displaced from the 1948 and 1967 wars deserved to have their own unique identity. He renamed them “Palestinians.” For the record before 1967 the term “Palestinians” referred to Jews. Walid Shoebat, an Arab who was living in Jericho during the ’67 war said “On June 4 I went to sleep as an Arab. The next day, without moving anywhere I am suddenly a “Palestinian.”

Arafat’s campaign included more than just an identity change for these newly renamed ‘Palestinians.’ He demanded an independent state, and laid claim to the entire area west of the Jordan River which Israel captured during the war. This is biblical Judea/Samaria, commonly referred to as the West Bank. As far as Arafat was concerned all this land was ‘Palestinian’ land, in spite of the fact International law affirms any land captured during a defensive war belongs to the victor, which was Israel.

His original goal when he founded the PLO in 1964 was to ‘liberate’ (destroy) all of Israel and replace it with a single ‘Palestinian’ state. Since Israel captured Judea/Samaria during the Six Day War he now added this to his goal.

The Age of Terror

After the 1967 war other terror groups sprung up including, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (1967), Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (1969), Islamic Jihad (1979), Hezbollah (1985) Hamas (1987), and several others. For the past 15 years the Fatah Party has been the dominant party in Judea/Samaria. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is the party Chairman.

Each of these groups is dedicated to ‘liberating’ (destroying) the state of Israel.

So why don’t the ‘Palestinians’ deserve a state? First off their claim to the land has no basis in reality. It’s not as though Arabs have no history in the land. They do. However the greater and more historical association belongs to the Jews. The Bible tells us it is this very land which was given to the Jews as “an everlasting inheritance.”  This land, including Jerusalem is the ancestral home of the Jewish people, superseding ‘Palestinian’ claims by thousands of years. This is a simple indisputable fact.

Present Day

However, let’s transition from the legitimate historical connection the Jews have to this land to present day.

Let’s examine today’s Israeli/Palestinian relations a little closer.

Israel has made several attempts to appease the ‘Palestinians,’ through agreements and offers. In 2000 for example, Prime Minister Ehud Barak made an unprecedented offer to Yasser Arafat. It included turning over roughly 99% of Judea/Samaria (aka: West Bank), dividing Jerusalem, and compensation for so-called “refugees.” Additionally, the Gaza Strip would be contiguously linked, effectively splitting Israel in two. By any definition this was a huge sacrifice on the part of Israel. President Clinton who was brokering the negotiations later said he “couldn’t believe how good the offer was.” Yet Arafat rejected it and the talks collapsed.  Clinton laid blame squarely where it belonged, on Arafat.

Why was such an incredibly generous offer rejected? Simple, the Muslims refuse to accept the existence of a Jewish state under any circumstances, no matter what the borders are. They are firmly convinced every square inch of the state of Israel is Muslim land. Thus, to accept the existence of a sovereign Jewish state on land which they consider theirs is viewed as blasphemy, which is punishable by death. Never mind that they have no legitimate claim to the land.

Not only do they refuse to accept the existence of Israel, or peacefully co-exist, they have mounted a decade’s long campaign to destroy the Jewish state.

Doctrines of Destruction

For example, look at some points in their founding charters:

Fatah Charter (party of Mahmoud Abbas)

Article 12- “complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence”

Article 13- “Establishing an independent democratic state with complete sovereignty on all Palestinian lands, and Jerusalem is its capital city”- Armed struggle is a strategy and not a tactic, and the Palestinian Arab People’s armed revolution is a decisive factor in the liberation fight and in uprooting the Zionist existence, and this struggle will not cease unless the Zionist state is demolished and Palestine is completely liberated.”  

 

PLO Charter

Article 9- “armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine”

Article 19- “The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal”

Hamas Charter

Preamble: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

Article 6-  “The Islamic  Resistance  Movement  is  a  distinguished  Palestinian movement, who’s allegiance is to Allah, and  whose  way  of  life  is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”

Article 13- “…There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.”

With the exception of Hezbollah in Lebanon, these three organizations are today’s main players in the conflict. Their charters represent the principles upon which each organization was founded. Based on the quotes from each of their charters it is unquestionable none of them seek a two state solution, or peaceful co-existence with a Jewish state of Israel. They all seek its destruction.

Ignoring the Truth

Yet, instead of calling out these organizations world leaders and the UN continue to blame Israel’s construction of homes as the main obstacle to a peace agreement. Recently the UN made this their official position with the passage of resolution 2334. Their action ignores the Palestinian’s indisputable requirement of the annihilation of Israel. Keep in mind-

  • Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly said he will never accept Israel as a Jewish state.
  • He glorifies those who murder innocent Israeli civilians by naming parks and schools after them.  
  • The PA pays large salaries to jailed murderers of Israelis.
  • When young Arabs stab Israeli’s or run them over with vehicles, Abbas refuses to condemn such terror.
  • He considers every drop of Muslim blood holy in its pursuit of Palestine’s liberation. In other words he is blessing murder in cold blood, while world leaders consider him a ‘moderate.’ Calling him a ‘moderate’ is redefining the very meaning of the word.
  • Curriculum in Palestinian schools teaches students the Jews stole their land, and they should strive to retake every inch of ‘Palestine,’ by jihad. Moreover, they are taught it is holy to murder Jews and be a martyr for Allah.

 

Some might suggest the terrorists don’t represent the Arab Palestinian population as a whole. If this is true why has there not been any outcry from the general Palestinian population against the terror? Why has there not been a single demonstration for peace with Israel on the Palestinian street? Where are the editorials condemning the terrorist in the Arab Palestinian press?

If the Palestinians are committed to peacefully co-exist with a Jewish state of Israel shouldn’t we see visible evidence of this? Instead, we see continued terror amid calls for Israel to cease construction. World leaders and the UN are ignoring the Palestinians true agenda. They need to realize the true obstacle to peace is not Israel’s construction. In 1948 or 1967 there were no “settlements,” nor were there any settlements in 1964 when the PLO was founded. Yet even though the land areas have changed, the goal was the same then as today- rejection of Israel’s right to exist.  The ‘Palestinians’ must be held accountable for this. Saying construction is the obstacle to peace makes as much sense as blaming the Jews for the Holocaust.   

The reality is the Arab Palestinians need a civilized gut check. Until such time as they renounce all terror, recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as its capital, drop all future land claims and amend their charters, they are undeserving of a state.

A civilized world should not reward murderers committed to destroy their presumed peace partner with nationhood. Moreover, Israel has every right to oppose sacrificing precious land to unreformed terrorists. Such action would be tantamount to handing bullets to your assassin.