Category Archives: Israel

Palestinian Arabs De-Registering from UNRWA

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The saga of the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) which have cast their lot with UNRWA for generations may finally be coming to an end.

Since 1949, the United Nations has promised Arabs who used to live and work in what became Israel, that they would be entitled to move back to their old houses. It didn’t matter if they had just moved those homes a few months before, 70 years ago. It didn’t matter if they were just renters and didn’t actually own any property. It didn’t matter that they rejected the very existence of Israel and wanted to see it destroyed. It didn’t even matter if they are the grandchild of someone who was just renting a house for a few months in what became Israel, and both they and their grandparents seek the end of the Jewish State. UNRWA crafted a special designation of “refugees” from Palestine:

“’persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.’ The descendants of Palestine refugee males, including legally adopted children, are also eligible for registration.”

These “UNRWA Refugees” were given much more than free housing, education and healthcare from the United Nations. They were promised that, with the help of the UN, they would get to move to the thriving country of Israel.

With such benefits and promise, these SAPs opted to register themselves with UNRWA, despite being denied the ability to gain well-paying jobs by their host countries in Syria and Lebanon. While they had relatives who moved on with their lives and became citizens of various countries ranging from Chile to the United Kingdom, the UNRWA Refugees opted to remain stateless and to live on handouts.

But those days may be coming to an end.

The ongoing war in Syria has been devastating, not just on Syrian civilians but on the UNRWA Refugees living in Syria. The unrest in Lebanon has not been much better. Meanwhile, the UNRWA Refugees watch actual refugees from Syria and Lebanon who are treated by the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) getting much better aid and a pathway out of the humanitarian disaster. Not surprisingly, the UNRWA Refugees are looking for a better deal.

On November 11, 2019, the acting officer in charge of UNRWA (as the prior head was fired for improper activities), Christian Saunders, addressed the UN about the current activities in the region. He noted at the end of his remarks:

“Emphasizing that the community of Palestine refugees from Syria inside Lebanon live in extremely difficult conditions, he said they are actively exploring ways to leave, with some demanding deregistration from UNRWA in the belief that it would offer access to resettlement opportunities available to other refugees from Syria.”

UNRWA Refugees are demanding de-registration from UNRWA to become regular refugees under the UNHCR which cares for every other refugee in the world.

The disgrace of UNRWA has been apparent for years, with corruption at the top, over-staffing, hiring of militants, warehousing of weapons to be used against Israel, textbooks which vilify the basic notion of coexistence and more. But it has taken a full 70 years since the establishment of UNRWA on December 8, 1949, for the organization to begin to devolve from within, from the very wards it was meant to assist declaring that they have had enough.

UNRWA was established to be a temporary agency in which “constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief,” as noted in Article 5 in its founding declaration. World sympathy (with perhaps not an insignificant amount of anti-Israel animus) prevented those ‘constructive measures’ from being enacted and billions of dollars in aid were spent on the descendants of the Palestinian Arabs who had started the war to destroy Israel. But lifetimes of long-term promises may finally yield to the dreams of immediate normalcy.

Christian Saunders, new deputy commissioner general of UN agency for Palestinian refugees. UN

Related First.One.Through articles:

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

Delivery of the Fictional Palestinian Keys

The Growth of UNRWA’s “Other” Wards

What’s Wrong with UNRWA

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease

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There is No Jewish Temple Mount for The New York Times

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The New York Times has earned and re-earned its anti-Israel bona fides over many years. It seems to want to burnish its anti-Jewish credentials as well.

In a November 11, 2019 article called “Jordan Reclaims Lands in 1994 Accord,” the Times wrote about a parcel of land which Israeli farmers had been working in the Jordan Valley which was recently reclaimed by Jordan. The Times framed the article that the land was legally Jordanian, and that the Jordanians had allowed the Israelis to work there for decades but how now reclaimed it as a matter of course in line with the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan struck in 1994.

The article continued to work a similar pattern, of Israelis living in lands which were rightfully Jordanian:

“Israeli-Jordanian tensions have flared periodically because of disputes with the Israelis over the handling of security at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, a hotly contested holy site over which Jordan has official custodianship.”

The article continued that Jordan had no choice to cancel the Jordan Valley land lease over “Israel’s repeated violations and actions… which were extremely provocative,” including placing metal detectors “at the mosque compound.”

Note that the Times chose to only call the site by the Islamic name, the “Al Aqsa Mosque compound” and not also refer to it by the Jewish name, the “Temple Mount.” It is the holiest site in the world for Jews, and were forbidden to enter when Jordan illegally controlled the site from 1949 to 1967.

When Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it allowed the Jordanian Waqf to have administrative control of the site, while Israel controlled all security matters. The Times neglected to tell readers that part of the equation, opting to make it appear that Jordan has “official custodianship” on all matters.

Additionally, the placing of metal detectors at the Temple Mount entrances were done in reaction to Arab terrorists killing Israelis at the site in 2017, another fact omitted by the Times.

Further, in an article which highlighted the 1994 Peace Accord, the paper could have mentioned that the treaty said in Article 9.2 that “Israel respects the present special role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Muslim Holy shrines in Jerusalem. When negotiations on the permanent status will take place, Israel will give high priority to the Jordanian historic role in these shrines.” Israel gave space for Jordan as it related to MUSLIM holy sites only, but not Jewish ones.

But the narrative of the Times distorted the entire picture.

The Times painted a picture that Jordan is the rightful owner and administrator of the Jordan Valley and the Al Aqsa Compound. It described these as purely Arab and Muslim sites in which they accommodated the Israeli Jews. These are #AlternativeFacts.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in the world only for Jews, and Israel has maintained full security control over the site for over fifty years. It is Israel that has accommodated the Jordanians, not the other way around, as Israel has given full access to Judaism’s holiest site to Muslims as they revere the location as well. But the Arabs have harassed and killed Israelis on the site, necessitating more aggressive security measures by the Israelis who are responsible for such matters.

The New York Times has no patience to educate its audience about the history of Jews nor the rights of Israelis, as it morphs its newspaper into Al Jazeera’s opinion section describing the Jewish state as illegal invaders of Arab lands.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Oh Abdullah, Jordan is Not So Special

The Waqf and the Temple Mount

When You Understand Israel’s May 1948 Borders, You Understand There is No “Occupation”

Ending Apartheid in Jerusalem

Al Jazeera’s Lies Call for Jihad Against the Jewish State

It is Time to Insert “Jewish” into the Names of the Holy Sites

Visitor Rights on the Temple Mount

Jordan’s Deceit and Hunger for Control of Jerusalem

The UN’s Disinterest in Jewish Rights at Jewish Holy Places

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land”

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J Street is Only Considered “Pro-Israel” in Progressive Circles

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J Street held its annual conference in late October 2019 where it had several Democratic presidential candidates address the left-wing crowd. The loudest applause was, not surprisingly, heard for the most progressive candidates: Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Sen. Bernie Sanders addressing J Street Conference October 28, 2019
It is interesting that J Street bills itself as “pro-Israel” when the crowd at its annual event gave a standing ovation to the most anti-Israel presidential candidate since the founding of the Jewish State. Sanders has accused Israel of war crimes, being racist and wants to divert funds meant for Israel’s security to the Arab people in Gaza who have launched three wars against Israel since 2008. Sanders may be the only Jew among the leaders of the Democratic presidential pack, but he is without question the most critical of the Jewish State.

And it is not a coincidence that Sanders if the most left-wing of the presidential contenders. It is only through the narrow prism of a progressive worldview that J Street and Sanders can be viewed as “pro-Israel.”

For most people, being pro-“fill-in-the-blank” means actively supporting that entity. It may be with words of support and encouragement to that entity. Perhaps its with active lobbying for trade and aid on that entity’s behalf. Speaking about it positively and with enthusiasm to others.

However, for J Street, being “pro-Israel” simply means believing that Israel has a right to exist and should have secure borders. I believe that Costa Rica should exist and have secure borders, but I don’t think that makes me “pro-Costa Rica.” Maybe if I associated with people who hated Costa Rica, I would be considered pro-Costa Rica for an otherwise benign point of view, but not among most of the world.

Which is precisely the J Street dynamic.

Inside the echo chambers of the progressive halls, suggesting that Israel has a right to exist is considered extraordinary and extreme. Vocalizing that it is and should remain the Jewish homeland is considered vulgar. That it has a right to defend itself against terrorism is deemed shocking.

That’s the sad reality among J Street’s peers. Groups like the New Israel Fund actively support organizations which try to dismantle any Jewishness of the Jewish State and fund global tours for people to demonize the Israel Defense Forces. IfNotNow fights to undermine Jewish presence in Jerusalem. Code Pink supports a boycott of Israeli products. Jewish Voice for Peace has supported terrorists who have killed Israelis. And the Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis on the boards of these institutions question whether Israel should exist at all.

The progressive stances on Israel can be seen in the “Women’s March” whose leaders are against “humanizing” Israelis and in BackLivesMatter which has a platform which calls Israel an “apartheid state” and advocates for B.D.S. (boycott, divest and sanctions of Israel). These are appalling statements and opinions.

With such a peer group of progressives, it should not shock people that in that narrow “coastal liberal latte-sipping politically-correct out-of-touch folks” as Barack Obama once said, J Street actually believes that saying the Israel should exist as a secure Jewish State is considered “pro-Israel.” Outside of the far-left extreme, that’s an opinion which is considered neutral – “pareve” as they would say in the Jewish community.

Actually being “pro-Israel” for groups like AIPAC means ensuring bi-partisan support for Israel, keeping trade and military cooperation intact, advocating for U.S. support for Israeli positions at the United Nations. J Street is against all of those ideas.

One could perhaps argue that it is useful for J Street to engage with their co-progressives and get them to upgrade their views on Israel. It is clear that the “Squad” of socialists in congress are not going to listen to AIPAC or the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC).

But it is horribly incorrect and out-of-bounds for the general public and media to quote J Street as the mainstream pro-Israel forum when it is nothing of the sort. It is merely the fringe “meh-Israel” segment of a radical leftist anti-Zionist ideology which is regrettably beginning to permeate the Democratic party.

Related First.One.Through articles:

J Street is a Partisan Left-Wing Group, NOT an Alternative to AIPAC

Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

The Left-Wing’s Two State Solution: 1.5 States for Arabs, 0.5 for Jews

The Evil Architects at J Street Take a Bow

J Street: Going Bigger and Bolder than BDS

J Street’s Select Appreciation of Transparency

Will the 2020 Democratic Platform Trash Israel?

Anti-Israel Lobbyists Dwarf Pro-Israel Lobbyists

BDS is a Movement by Radical Islamists and Far-Left Progressives to Block Your Freedoms

A Basic Lesson of How to be Supportive

Fake Definitions: Pluralism and Progressive / Liberalism

Unity – not Unanimity – in the Pro-Israel Tent

Enduring Peace versus Peace Now

Students for Justice in Palestine’s Dick Pics

The Three Camps of Ethnic Cleansing in the BDS Movement

The Anger from the Zionist Center

Rick Jacobs’ Particular Reform Judaism

The Democratic Party is Tacking to the Far Left-Wing Anti-Semitic Fringe

Black Lives Matter Joins the anti-Israel “Progressives” Fighting Zionism

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Anti-“Settlements” is Anti-Semitism

Please Don’t Vote for a Democratic Socialist

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Turkey’s Hajj of Hypocrisy

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The leader of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, was given the floor at the United Nations in September 2019. The brutal ruler who denies the Ottoman genocide of the Armenian people which killed over one million people, even while he accuses Israel of genocide for defending itself against Palestinian Arab terrorist resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 Arabs, used the global platform to once again christen the halls of hate with a harangue of hypocrisy and hubris.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Erdogan took turns slamming various countries in the region. He dressed down competing Islamic countries of Egypt and Saudi Arabia for their violations of human rights and democracy but did not blink in a moment of self-reflection at his own government’s incitement of terror in Israel and jailing of journalists in Turkey. He lambasted Saudi Arabia’s participation in the war in Yemen at its borders, and then showed the world how he planned on invading Syria to clear out thousands of Kurds to make room for millions of Muslims who had fled Syria to Turkey. A torrent of hypocrisy so full and rich, it left a mustache on his brow.

At 22:13 of his remarks, he pivoted to Israel, a longtime favorite target, on par with the Kurdish people, both of whom he feels deserve no rights or lands. He pulled out a map of the region in an effort to portray Israel as gobbling up Arab land. “Where was Israel in 1947?” he asked the audience.

Where was Palestine from 1517 to 1917 one might wonder? It was part of the Ottoman Empire, his country’s empire. It stretched out from Constantinople (what the Turk’s call Istanbul today) to cover much of the region and was pared back after World War I, allowing countries like Greece, Lebanon, Syria – and yes, Israel – to emerge. Erdogan’s predecessors made no attempt to promote an independent locally-governed Arab country. No matter. His country’s failings and atrocities cannot be acknowledged.

Seemingly bored with his own hypocrisy, Erdogan pivoted his talk towards a mix of Jew-hatred and Fake History. He pointed to a map and claimed that “Palestine” (represented in green) in 1947 was everywhere where Arabs were a majority or where there were no people living at all. Places where Jews consisted of a majority were shown in specs of white, and said “there is seemingly no Israeli presence on these lands.” This is an echo of the anti-Semitic screed that only Arabs have ever been Palestinian, while in fact Jews, Christians and others also referred to themselves as Palestinian. The Palestinian Liberation Organization charter of 1964 created the new definition that only Arabs were Palestinian and connected to the land. Erdogan extended that foolishness by saying that any neighborhood which was majority Jewish was “Israeli.” Does he similarly think that current Jewish neighborhoods in Istanbul are “Israeli?” Heaven help those poor remaining Jews in Erdogan’s racist Turkey.

Erdogan continued:

“The year 1947 the Distribution [Partition] Plan takes place, gets ratified, Palestinian lands start shrinking and Israel starts expanding. And from 1947 to 1967 Israel is still expanding; Palestine is still shrinking.”

Left out from Erdogan’s remarks was that the entire Muslim world rejected the Partition Plan. Ignored facts include that five Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948 to destroy it completely, but the Arabs lost and Israel took over more land in its defensive war. Omitted from his history lesson was that the remaining “Arab” lands were taken over by Egypt (Gaza) and Jordan which annexed the West Bank. Palestine was not just “shrinking,” it ceased to exist in any form.

If Erdogan really feels that international law is paramount and that Jews are the same as Israel, then why not acknowledge the international law of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, which called for “reconstituting their national home” of Jews in Palestine in the 1922 Mandate of Palestine. That law was for the ENTIRETY of the land he highlighted in his map – all of the green and all of the white areas – for Jewish settlement. And for Erdogan Jews equals Israel, ergo all of the land is Israel.

Erdogan was far from done. At 24:45 he went after Judaism’s holiest city, its capital in Jerusalem:

“The current Israeli government and the administration right next to these murders and atrocities is busy with intervening and attacking the historical legal status of Jerusalem and holy sacred lands and artifacts. As Turkey we have a very clear stance on this issue. The immediate establishment of an independent Palestinian State with homogenous territories on the basis of the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital is the only solution. Any other peace plan other than this will never have a chance of being fair, just and it will never be implemented.”

Israel has been the only country to permit access and rights to people of all religions in Jerusalem. When Muslim Arabs ruled the city from 1949 to 1967, Jews were banned from entering or living in the city. The Ottoman Empire forbade Jews from even climbing all of the steps of Judaism’s second holiest location, the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs in Hebron.

But beyond Erdogan’s fake history and selective memory is his long-standing love affair with hypocrisy.

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and took over the northern half of the island-country. In the war, Turkey seized half of the capital city of Nicosia, in a move condemned by the United Nations and the world. To this day, Turkey continues to claim its rights to the seized lands including half of the capital, in a long-simmering dispute. Yet the world’s admonition of Turkey’s actions does not seem to bother Erdogan, even as he claims lands which were seized in an offensive war which were never deemed part of Turkey. Quite a bit of hypocrisy, relative to Erdogan’s stance on Israel’s reclaiming Judaism’s holiest city in a defensive war.

September at the United Nations is the hajj of hypocrisy, where Islamic tyrants and dictators lecture the world about rights and laws which they trample upon with abandon. Recep Erdogan has long been the hajj’s mascot.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The United Nations Absolves Turkey’s Erdogan

Both Israel and Jerusalem are Beyond Recognition for Muslim Nations

The Churlish Turkish Leadership

New York Times Talking Turkey

Pakistan’s Muslim Leader Cannot Address Fellow Muslim Leaders

Goodbye Mahmoud Abbas

Related First.One.Through videos:

Turkish Hypocrisy: Turkey Threatens its Neighbors

Turkish hypocrisy: Erdogan’s Line of Defense

Netanyahu’s Apology to Erdogan (music by Joe Cocker)

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Ayman Odeh Doesn’t Speak for Arab Israelis, Jewish Israelis or Peace

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Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh received prime real estate in the Op-Ed page of the September 23, 2019 print edition of The New York Times. He aired his personal wish list of a neutered Jewish State, at odds with the wishes of both Arab and Jewish Israelis.

“We call for repealing the nation-state law that declared me, my family and one-fifth of the population to be second-class citizens.”

There is no “we” in that statement. A July 2018 poll taken of Israeli Arabs shortly after passing Israel’s Nation-State bill showed an incredible 84.8 percent approval rating for recognizing Israel as the state of the Jewish people. That was even more than the 61.9 percent approval by Israeli Jews.

“The morning after the exclusionary “nation-state” law was passed, I drove my children to school and thought about raising them in a country that has repeatedly rejected Arab Palestinian children. Israeli governments have made this rejection clear time and again, from the years of military rule imposed on Arabs in Israel from the founding of the state until 1966.”

When Israel was founded in 1948, it gave every person living in the land Israeli citizenship. Over 160,000 Arabs became citizens on that day, quite the opposite reaction of Odeh’s “brothers and sisters” who went to war with Israel, evicted every Jew from the land they seized, and forbade any Jew from becoming citizens. To say that Arabs in Israel lived under military rule, is not simply fake history, it suggests that Odeh views the nation in which he serves as a member of parliament as completely illegitimate from its founding.

“The Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel…”

Israel permits dual-nationality for its citizens with many countries, but Israel does not recognize any country called “Palestine,” so why does Odeh call himself by such title time and again? He is an Israeli Arab, given citizenship and rights to vote, work and participate in government like millions of others. The government in which he serves clearly rejects such nomenclature.

“Our decision to recommend Mr. Gantz as the next prime minister without joining his expected national unity coalition government is a clear message that the only future for this country is a shared future,”

Odeh is seemingly very confused. He claims to desire a shared future but refuses to join in such shared future. It is a similar call to the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) who call on Israel to do everything, but do not act constructively to bring about a shared future.

“We will continue our work toward a better, equal future, and our struggle for civil rights, rooted in our national identity as Palestinians. There is room enough for all of us in our shared homeland,”

If Odeh would like to define his “national identity as Palestinian” then he can move to such a country when and if it is created. If he truly believes that there is “room enough for all,” then he should stop protesting when Jews move to Judea and Samaria, in lands east of the invisible Green Line. The two state solution he endorses is really a 1.5 state solution: a Palestinian Arab state devoid of Jews and non-Jewish egalitarian state for both Arabs and Jews.

Odeh’s endorsement of boycotting Israel, even going so far as refusing to attend a meeting located on the same floor as the Jewish Agency, are well known. Lesser known are his comments for violence against Israel “I can’t sit in my house in Carmel and tell the Palestinian people how to fight. I think that my people will choose how to fight, will choose its path.”

Ayman Odeh’s statements are at direct odds with the entire notion of two states for two people as called for at the United Nations for one hundred years, and against the stated desire of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews. His goal is to destroy the Jewish State from within, not to advance peace inside and outside of Israel.

Related First.One.Through articles:

“Peace” According to Palestinian “Moderates”

In Defense of Foundation Principles

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

New York Times Grants Nobel Prize-in Waiting to Palestinian Arab Terrorist

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The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

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The week before Israeli elections always brings out the bile in the anti-Zionist New York Times. This election, scheduled for September 17, was no exception.

The front page screed (not worthy of being called news) on September 14, 2019 called “A Challenge to the Essence of Old Jerusalem, Coming by Cable Car,” was written by Michael Kimmelman, an architecture critic, leading a reader to imagine a piece covering the “essence” of Jerusalem’s architecture and the proposed modern cable car. While the article did touch on those points, the observations were drowned out by the paper’s anti-Jewish narrative of Judaism’s holiest city.


Front page and page A8 of the September 14, 2019 New York Times

The opening paragraph directs the reader that Jerusalem is a city of Muslims and Christians and… well, there aren’t any Jews.

“At a glance, Jerusalem’s Old City and its surroundings still look pretty much as they must have looked centuries ago. The Old City’s yellow walls still read in silhouette against an ancient landscape of parched hills and valleys. The skyline is still dominated by the city’s great Muslim and Christian shrines: the gold, glistening Dome of the Rock and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus was said to have been buried.”

Has Kimmelman even visited the city? The “parched hills and valleys” are dotted with modern apartment buildings and hotels. The Old City skyline includes the newly rebuilt Hurva Synagogue (2010), reconstructed now for the third time, first built in 1694.

Jerusalem’s Old City with a mix of Muslim, Christian and Jewish sites
(photo: First.One.Through)

The article’s second paragraph showed ignorance in addition to blindness.

“But this is about to change. Israeli authorities have approved a plan to build an elevated cable car to the Western Wall, the holiest site in the Jewish world, by 2021.”

The Western Wall, the Kotel, is not the holiest site in Judaism; that is the Temple Mount. The Kotel is only a retaining wall of the Temple Mount where Jews have been relegated to use since Suleiman I kicked the Jews off of the Temple Mount in the 16th century.

With bona fides of ignorance established, the author leaned into his bias, pointing a finger at “right-wing Israeli leaders” as the promoters of a plan which “has provoked howls of protest from horrified Israeli preservationists, environmentalists, planners, architects and others who picture a global heritage site turned into a Jewish-themed Epcot.”

This is the “essence” of the article.

Israelis enjoy a full-throated democracy and opine on everything. Such a new visible transportation system would obviously prompt outcries, mostly on the basis of aesthetics, which is presumably why it was an architecture critic penning the article. But The Times’ anti-Israel politics quickly overwhelmed the story.

The article stated that the cable car proposal is being advanced by “right wing” leaders and opposed by many Israelis. The “global heritage site” – which readers were just educated has no Jewish ties – will be transformed by the radicals into a Jewish Disneyland (ie. fake and cheesy to bring in tourist dollars). Even fellow Jews were nauseated. The Arabs must be apoplectic.

Queue the Times’ right-wing racist Prime Minister Netanyahu theme music.

Moving quickly from the architecture of the site, Kimmelman went full-politics describing Netanyahu’s announcement of annexing “nearly a third of the occupied West Bank.” This diversion from transportation and architecture into politics went to the heart of the author’s view: the cable car is a Jewish takeover of Arab sites and heritage. Tying those themes together Kimmelman continued:

“The cable car project is an example, illustrating how Israel wields architecture and urban planning to extend its authority in the occupied territories. Whatever its transit merits, which critics say are negligible, the cable car curates a specifically Jewish narrative of Jerusalem, furthering Israeli claims over Arab parts of the city.“

For the Times, the environmentally-friendly approach of helping bring the over 2.4 million tourists visit the Kotel in the cramped ancient city had little to do with tourism or transportation, but served as yet another example of Israel’s right-wing government turning Arab lands into Jewish assets. The article never mentioned that Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem for 150 years, that two Jewish Temples stood at the center of the Temple Mount, nor that Jerusalem is the focus of prayer for Jews around the world.

Instead, the article continued on a theme that Jewish fanatics were forcing Arabs from their homes and entrenching an illegal occupation.

“From Mount Zion, the cars will land near the Western Wall, on the rooftop of what is to be multistory center for a right-wing Jewish settler organization called the City of David Foundation, in the midst of a Palestinian district of East Jerusalem called Silwan. The City of David oversees archaeological excavations centered on uncovering biblical Jewish remains in an effort to cement an ancient Jewish connection to a contested site. Israel considers East Jerusalem annexed, but international law considers it occupied territory.”

A paragraph so rich in alternative facts and fake history, it deserves to be unpacked:

  • The City of David Foundation is not a “right-wing settler organization” but a foundation which promotes archaeological discovery and tourism, something that people of all religions and political persuasions enjoy.
  • The City of David does not “oversee” excavations; they help fund the work which is performed by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
  • The area of Silwan was originally founded by Jews from Yemen in early 1880’s. It is not a “district of East Jerusalem.” East Jerusalem was a blip in history that lasted for only 19 of Jerusalem’s 4,000 years, which ceased to exist over 50 years ago. Further, it is not “Palestinian,” but a predominantly Arab neighborhood which also includes Jews.
  • The notion that the only reason that Israel is doing excavations is to “cement an ancient Jewish connection to a contested site” is vile and disgusting. Israel has archaeological excavations all over the country – do Jews need to validate their history everywhere in the holy land? Uncovering the unified Jewish capital city of King David and King Solomon from 3,000 years ago is an exciting discovery for the entire world and each discovery is a celebration for anyone who has read the bible. But not for Kimmelman, who added “Archaeology works hand in glove here with settler efforts to press Jewish claims to the land.“

Remarkably, the article descended into further conspiracy theories from there.

Kimmelman wrote that Israelis treat Arabs as invisible and are forcibly evicting them from their homes to make way for this attraction. The goal is to give tourists a “Jewish version of the city’s history” from a time when “there were no Christians or Muslims.”

The author leaves the reader with the feeling that it is also the current intent of the right-wing settler government of Israel to see a city devoid of Muslims and Christians, as “the cladding of East Jerusalem’s settlements in Jerusalem stone, the architectural uniform traditionally worn by buildings in Jewish West Jerusalem, helps spread the image of a single Jewish city.”

For the New York Times, the “essence” of the Old City of Jerusalem is its Arab character navigated via narrow walkways, now being violated by right-wing Jewish invaders changing and scarring its demographics, character and approach. Especially at election time, the Times wants to warn everyone that the “essence” of this Israeli government is racist colonial Jewish supremacists.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The New York Times will Keep on Telling You: Jews are not Native to Israel

The Remarkable Tel Jerusalem

The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

The Dark Side of Jerusalem Day: Magnifying the Kotel and Minimizing the Temple Mount

Ending Apartheid in Jerusalem

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem

The New York Times Major anti-Netanyahu Propaganda Piece

750 Years of Continuous Jewish Jerusalem

Arabs in Jerusalem

Today’s Inverted Chanukah: The Holiday of Rights in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria

Palestinians agree that Israel rules all of Jerusalem, but the World Treats the City as Divided

The Arguments over Jerusalem

Reunified Capitals: Berlin @25; Jerusalem @47

First.One.Through music videos:

The anthem of Israel is Jerusalem (Hatikvah)

Judea and Samaria (music by Foo Fighters)

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Jizyah for Jews in Jerusalem

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The predominantly Christian town of Jifna in Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A of the West Bank was an opening scene from a horror movie in late April 2019. Members of Fatah, the major political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, stormed into the town firing guns into the air and demanded that the Christian Arabs be forced to pay jizyah, an annual fee which non-Muslims pay to be allowed to live in Muslim-majority lands.


Town of Jifna

The incident is a continuation of the assault on the Christian population in Palestinian Authority-controlled towns and cities since Israel handed some lands to the PA.

Unfortunately, many well known Christian cities in the holy land are no longer Christian.

Nazareth, a city which was once majority-Christian, is now 70% Muslim. The Islamic influence changed things large and small, such as at Mary’s Well, the site where the angel Gabriel came to the Virgin Mary according to Catholic tradition. Until the year 2000, there was a large sign describing the name and Catholic views of the site. The Muslims removed the sign and renamed the location ‘Nazareth Stream’ to remove any Christian orientation.

A similar story played out in Bethlehem, where the Christian population has dropped from around 86 percent in 1950 to just 2 percent today. In Gaza, a rapid Christian exodus is happening post the Hamas takeover, with a decline from 5,000 Christians in 2006 to only 1,100 today.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the Christian population has remained relatively constant at around 2 percent of the overall population, about 165,000 people.

If the Palestinian Authority is given more Israeli territory, what will that mean for the non-Muslim populations? Will Jews and Christians be forced to evacuate their homes either be direct order or discriminatory policies?

What is the going jizyah rate, and when would it be forced upon the Jews and Christians in a PA-controlled Jerusalem?

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Christian Persecution (music by Hovhaness)

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Will the 2020 Democratic Platform Trash Israel?

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In the aftermath of Israel barring entry of two far left-wing anti-Israel members of Congress, Democratic politicians began to worry that Israel was becoming a wedge issue rather than an issue with bipartisan support. Staunch pro-Israel Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) said “refusing entry to members of Congress looks like Israel [is] closing itself off to criticism and dialogue. This decision will only strengthen the anti-Israel movements and arguments many of us find so troubling, further politicize support for Israel in the United States and ultimately play right into the hands of Israel’s enemies.”

Engel has been a member of Congress since 1989 and knows better. He has seen his own Democratic party moving away from Israel since President Barack Obama made deliberate efforts to create daylight between Israel and the United States in his outreach to the Muslim world.

If one were to look at the 2008 Democratic Platform, it would be hard to see much of a difference from the Republican Platform regarding Israel. Both parties considered Israel a strong ally and backed Israeli positions.

But Obama made a strategic pivot away from Israel running as an incumbent in 2012. With the blessing of left-wing groups like J Street, the Democratic Party officially changed course on several key issues:

  • Refugees. Until 2012, the Democrats agreed with Republicans that Palestinian refugees would find a home in a new state of Palestine, not Israel.
  • Hamas. Until 2012, Democrats agreed that Hamas should be isolated until it renounced terror and recognized Israel’s basic right to exist.
  • Borders. Until Obama, Democrats agreed with Republicans that a new Palestinian state would NOT be established along the 1949 Armistice Lines, but reflect current realities and need to ensure Israel’s security.
  • Jerusalem. Until Obama, the Democrats and Republicans agreed that Jerusalem would remain a united city and the capital of Israel.

Those points – with the exception of Jerusalem which was bitterly contested on the convention floor – would disappear from the 2012 Democratic platform.

Years before Donald Trump considered running for president and the rise of the alt-left, the Democratic Party pulled back from supporting Israel’s position regarding establishing peace with the Arab world.

The pro-Arab camp would gather steam with the presidential aspirations of Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election season. In an effort to placate the Sanders camp when Hillary Clinton became the official party nominee, the Democrats allowed the Sanders team to help craft the official platform. Sanders chose anti-Israel figures to help draft the language, including Cornel West who calls Israel an “apartheid state,” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) and James Zogby who back the boycott of Israel movement.

In the end, the Clinton camp killed the Sanders’ team proposed language “aimed at criticizing the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, demanding ‘an end to illegal settlements’ and supporting the re-building of the Gaza Strip.” But the anti-Israel movement inside the Democratic party had taken yet another step, moving from pro-Israel (until 2012) to neutral (2012) to critical (almost in 2016).

The 2020 presidential race is underway, and three of the four top Democratic candidates are deep in the far-left fringe of the party, including Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA). With the rise and remarkable defense of the anti-Israel ‘Freshmen Squad,‘ one can expect the ‘Senior Squad’ will likely draft an official party platform that will actively attack Israel on issues which once had strong bipartisan support.

Trump has not made Israel a wedge issue in politics; the Democrats have been actively doing that themselves since Obama.

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Palestineism is Toxic Racism

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Racism is a form of hatred which believes that all members of a particular group are inferior and/or evil. In itself, it is ugly but not dangerous, a localized noxious belief system based on bigotry. Racism becomes toxic when it spreads and obtains power.

Such is the state of Palestineism, the effort to weaken, shrink and destroy Israel because it is a Jewish State, as well as to vilify Jews and deny their rights, history and dignity in the Jewish holy land.

The Arab World

Palestineism has been present in the Arab and Muslim world for a hundred years.

Denying Jews and the Jewish State has been at the forefront of the Palestineism. Even before Jews reestablished Jewish sovereignty in their holy land in 1948, Arabs rioted and killed Jews throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, and petitioned the British who oversaw the Palestine Mandate to bar and limit the entry of Jews during the Holocaust in Europe. When Israel declared itself a Jewish state, the armies of five neighboring Arab Muslim countries invaded with the stated desire to destroy it completely. The Arabs evicted Jews from all lands they seized and specifically forbade Jews from obtaining citizenship (Article 3). Fellow Arab and Muslim nations followed suit, with ten Arab and Muslim countries expelling one million Jews after Israel was founded, irrespective of whether their fellow Jewish countrymen were Zionists.

To this very day, there are 30 Arab and Muslim countries which refuse to acknowledge the basic existence of the only Jewish country despite 20% of Israel’s population being Muslim, even while they recognize other countries including Myanmar which actively persecutes Muslims. The acting-President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas continues to refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, an acknowledgement which would have no impact on creating a new state of Palestine.

The Arab world’s objection to Israel is specifically that it is that is it Jewish.

The Palestinians elected Hamas to 58 percent of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 with this antisemitic jihadist charter full of sinister conspiracy theories about Jews (Articles 17, 22 and 30, among others).

The institutionalized Arab hatred of the Jews has developed into a full-blown vile ideology, as it attempts to validate its desire to wipe out Jews from the region.

  • The foundational document of the Palestinian Arabs claims that Jews have no history in Palestine, erasing the history and essence of the Jewish people (Article 18).
  • Throughout the Muslim world, Jews are actively dehumanized and stripped of their dignity, referred to as the “sons of apes and pigs.” It is a doctrine of racial superiority which is morally condemnable.
  • Mahmoud Abbas said that Jews have been hated for centuries because “of their function,” which is why they are always massacred. He continued his screed that in recent history, the “imperialist powers” tossed those unwanted Jews out of their countries into the Middle East, poisoning Palestinian land with the wretched people. It is blame-the-victim approach worthy of a sickening governing body which excuses honor killings of women.

The fabric of Palestineism is that Jews are disgusting foreign invaders who have no rights nor claims to Arab land.

This immoral Palestineism ideology manifests itself in many ways:

  • The Palestinian Authority has a law which calls for the death penalty for any Arab who sells land to a Jew.
  • The PA gives lifetime stipends to Arabs who murder Jews.
  • The Palestinians refuse to allow Jews to step foot on Arab college campuses in the West Bank, even journalists who loudly condemn Israel.
  • When Muslims ruled Hebron, they refused to allow Jews from entering their second holiest place, the Tomb of the Jewish Patriarchs.
  • Muslim Arabs continue to refuse to let the Jews pray at their holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount.

The list goes on.

Palestineism, in its very essence, is about the repression of the dignity and integrity of Jews as human beings, with full rights to live and worship freely in their holy land. The toxicity has spread from the leadership and the state-controlled media to infuse the people who are the most anti-Semitic in the world.

Palestineism in The Rest of the World

Palestineism was built on Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories. The calls that Jews are “colonialists” and invaders of “Arab land” has been picked up by others, including leaders in the western world.

In Great Britain, Jeremy Corbyn is a member of the Labour Party who adopted Palestineism early in his career, often comparing Israelis to Nazis. He was once an outlier, but the toxicity infected the rest of the party when he was elected the party leader in September 2015 and began replacing senior party people with like-minded racists. Jews began to leave the Labour party in droves – including members of parliament – finding the antisemitism intolerable.

In the United States, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were elected to congress in November 2018, and accused Jews of having dual loyalty and buying off members of the government to support Israel, racist tropes which the two Muslim women have not made about Irish-Americans, Mexican Americans or any other group. They contend that the most liberal nation in the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is an apartheid state, inverting the root cause of racism in the region, deflecting Muslim antisemitism. Meanwhile, these same members of Congress believe that the Islamic Republic of Iran which hangs gays by cranes in the streets and is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism, should not only not be boycotted, but given a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran has called for the destruction of Israel – coincidence?

Palestineism is employing the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) Israel, the sole Jewish state as a tool in its jihad. Corbyn, Omar and Tlaib are pushing for economic warfare against Israel, supposedly in the name of giving Palestinian Arabs a state.

The European Union is considering unique labels for products manufactured by Jews in the Israeli territory of Area C in the West Bank, but not those manufactured by non-Jews. It is the very definition of racism in suppressing the dignity of one human being over another. Will it label products made by Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir differently? By Christians and Muslims in Cyprus?

The toxicity of racism embedded in the Palestineism is not just spreading, it is being mainstreamed and defended by political leaders outside of the Muslim and Arab world. Denying Jewish history and repressing Jewish dignity are no longer viewed as morally condemnable and socially unjust, but essential ingredients to the creation of a Palestinian state, because those sentiments are demanded by the Arab world and Palestinian leadership. As it is considered improper to malign the “marginalized” in liberal circles, the alt-left is parroting the Palestineism propaganda, rather than condemning the racism.

So, schools in the Palestinian territories named for terrorists get European funding. Textbooks which deny the humanity and history of Jews are disseminated by the United Nations. Monies which flow to the murderers of Jews are reimbursed by Arab and non-Arab countries alike.

It is the very embodiment of toxic racism.

Palestinian Arabs could achieve sovereignty and statehood in Gaza and Areas A and B tomorrow, but Palestineism has more malicious demands: that Israel not be a Jewish State; that Jews be forbidden from living anywhere in Palestine; and that Jews be denied access and rights to their holy sites. It is Palestineism that is the roadblock to creating a state of Palestine and an enduring peace in the region, nothing else.

Palestineism is a sinister jihad, a direct antisemitic assault on the humanity, dignity and integrity of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State and the polar opposite of coexistence and decency. It must be condemned loudly, clearly and often by everyone.


Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), advocate for boycotting Israel,
upon being sworn in as a new member of the US Congress

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I Understand Why the Caged Jew Sighs

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The free Crescent Birds migrate back-and-forth
Crossing from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans
Over 1.8 billion in total, touching mountains and deserts
With feet on the ground and heads in the sky.

The free Cross Birds zip casually in Europe and Americas
Counting over 2.2 billion, they dominate the West
And have causes in the East
Every land an open door.

But the Jew Birds were given no nests
Seen as failing the two faith tests
Still needing some safe quarters
By point, forced into cramped ghettos.

The caged BIRDS were hunted
A paltry sum stunted
Clipped wings on the precipice
The tattered flock Exodus.

The Crescent Birds haj to Mecca
Drew millions of the same feather
A city with a single plume
Marked Jerusalem as its own.

The Cross Birds sang at the Vatican
And set stations in Jerusalem
They came and went and fought and prayed
The pilgrims of reenactment.

The caged BIRDS were allotted few miles
For which they fought several trials
Barred from rebuilding their holy nest
Being told they were just passing guests.

The caged birds are left in the
Shadow of a wall
Lifting heads to sing over the
Muezzin call
While the Crescent Birds mock overhead
The caged birds sing of hope and what’s next.


The Temple Mount seen from the roof of the Hurva Synagogue
(photo: First.One.Through)

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