English Lesson: Eviction, Expulsion and Ethnic Cleansing

Posted on May 20, 2021 by First.One.Through

Progressive politicians and the left-wing media are using three terms interchangeably regarding Arab residents of Jewish Israeli-owned homes in the Sheikh Jarrah section of Jerusalem. Doing so is not only inaccurate but inflammatory.

Here is a primer to understand the difference of the terms:

Eviction is the act of removing a single entity (person/ family) from a single location.
Expulsion is the act of removing a single entity from an entire region.
Ethnic Cleansing is the act of removing an entire ethnic/ religious group from an entire region.

The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is an eviction. It pertains to Arab squatters who have not paid rent to their landlords for several years. These tenants are not being forced from the neighborhood and are free to move into adjacent apartment buildings inside of Jerusalem. The Israeli courts, which have jurisdiction on the matter whether someone believes that the eastern section of Jerusalem is Israel or believes Israel is responsible as the “Occupying Force,” ruled that the evictions are legal.

This case is discrete. Israel is not involved in a massive expulsion of Arab residents from Jerusalem. As proof, from 1980, the year Israel formalized Jerusalem as its eternal undivided capital in its Basic Laws, until 2019, the Arab population in Jerusalem grew 3.4 times, dwarfing the Jewish population growth rate which was only 1.9 times over that period. The number of households (homes/ apartments) for Arabs rose 188% since 1990 compared to just 64% for Jews. Further, all Arab residents can apply for Israeli citizenship and these past few years have seen a spike in Arabs becoming Israelis.

In sharp contrast, an example of ethnic cleansing can be seen by what the Jordanian Arabs did to Jews in Jerusalem from 1948 to 1954. First they invaded Israel and killed or expelled all of the Jews from the “West Bank” region they illegally seized. They destroyed 58 synagogues in the Old City of Jerusalem and barred any Jews from even visiting their holiest location during their duration of illegal rule. And they annexed the entire area including eastern Jerusalem, passed a law making it illegal to sell land to Jews and granted citizenship to anyone “not being Jewish.“

That’s actual ethnic cleansing, which is a very different dynamic than Arab residents of Jerusalem have experienced under Israeli rule.

But the alt-left is doing its utmost to paint Israel as racist:

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said that Israel “is practicing ethnic cleansing.“
Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said “This [Jerusalem] deputy mayor is describing ethnic cleansing here, yet everyone is [sic] the West is pretending that’s not what’s happening to Palestinians.“
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke about “the expulsions of Palestinians.“
The New York Times wrote about “the plight of six Palestinian families facing expulsion from their homes.“

These lies have inflamed the passions of radical jihadists. Hundreds of people have died and millions of dollars of damage has been done in large part because of the incitement.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who has has often been accused of anti-Semitism, lead the false charge against Israel of an “ethnic cleansing” of Jerusalem Arabs. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Progressive politicians and the far left media have a direct hand in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Arabs and Jews in and around Israel over the past weeks. While their lies and smears caused horrific damage thousands of miles away, it is a price the alt-left is willing to pay to boost their bona fides with anti-Zionist extremists who support them and keep them in positions of influence.

Related First One Through articles:

The Original Nakba: The Division of “TransJordan”

The Three Camps of Ethnic Cleansing in the BDS Movement

“Ethnic Cleansing” in Israel and the Israeli Territories

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

NY Times Select “Evictions” in Jerusalem

Will the UN Demand a Halt to Arabs Moving to Jerusalem?

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The Selective Protests Reveal Anti-Semitism

Posted on May 18, 2021 by First.One.Through

When protestors only show up for certain victims and conflicts, what is the takeaway?

The Palestinian terrorist political party HAMAS launched thousands of rockets into Israel in May 2021, seemingly ready to add a fourth war to its tally since it took over Gaza in 2007. In short order, the streets in major cities around the world were full of protesters raging about the hundreds of people who were killed by Israel’s retaliatory attacks on the HAMAS terrorist infrastructure.

Protesters at a Free Palestine demonstration in Sydney in May 2021. Thousands of people have marched in Sydney and Melbourne as the conflict in Gaza worsened. (Photo: Bianca de Marchi/AFP/Getty Images)

Yet no one has taken to the streets regarding the multi-year ongoing war that has killed 250,000 people in impoverished Yemen. Thousands of children have been killed in the bloody campaign but the loss of life of these poor Muslim Arabs gathers neither tears nor shouts. The United Nations and news agencies don’t post daily death totals on that tragedy. Or weekly. Or monthly.

That’s an Israel phenomenon.

In over six years of war, one cannot find a single article about protestors in Australia assembling in the streets to protest the carnage in Yemen. The best one finds is an opinion piece from two and one-half years ago, arguing that Australia should stop supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons because of the 85,000 children who died either directly or indirectly from the war which was only four years-old at that point in time.

The situation is identical for “Pro-Palestinian” protests in South Africa, Brazil, the Netherlands and the United States. Though tens and hundreds of thousands more Muslim Arabs in Yemen and Syria may be being killed, the streets only fill with protestors for Palestinian Arabs.

Which begs the questions as to why.

It is not as though the dynamics are unique with various state actors like Saudi Arabia/ Iran/ Yemen in one situation compared to Israel versus a non-state entity like the Palestinian Authority in the other, as many countries like Brazil and South Africa recognize Palestine as an actual country.

It is also a fact that Israel is not waging war against the Palestinians generally; it is targeting the terrorist group HAMAS, much like the U.S. targeting the Taliban in Afghanistan (another situation which has gathered virtually no global protests despite the war raging for twenty years).

The streets seemingly echo the halls of the United Nations, which adopted the Palestinians as its perennial wards, thereby making it incapable of condemning its own foster children regardless of its continued war crimes. Palestinians are always, and can only be victims.

But the protestors are even angrier than the U.N. The United Nations does not – at least openly – seek the destruction of the Jewish State. The same cannot be said of many of the agitators with signs ranging from “From the River to the sea“, “Hitler was right” and chants “We don’t want no two states; we want ’48.” These activists assemble in plazas where Nazis destroyed synagogues – literally on the ashes of Jews – to try to label Israel as the actual terrorist group rather than HAMAS.

It is in watching the protests that the answer to the uniqueness of solidarity with Palestinians shines through: it is not the nature of the victim or scale of the battle which brings out the anger but the underlying cause itself. The protestors do not see HAMAS as a terrorist organization or its charter calling for the destruction of Israel as unjust. They do not believe in the legitimacy of Israel and want it dismantled, and believe that IT CAN be dismantled.

Pro-Palestinian agitators aren’t seeking to protect Palestinian civilians as much as they want to pressure their own governments to make Israel vulnerable – politically, militarily and economically – to facilitate HAMAS’s goal of destroying the Jewish State.

Related First One Through articles:

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

Israel and Wars

US Hypocrisy – “Reasonableness and Restraint”

Protesting the Victor, not the Victims

France’s Hypocrisy Expelling Radical Extremist Non-Citizens

Turkey’s Hajj of Hypocrisy

Liberal Hypocrisy on Foreign Government Intervention

Turkish Hypocrisy – Erdogan’s Line of Defense

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War

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Does the UN Only Grant Inalienable Rights to Palestinians?

Posted on May 12, 2021 by First.One.Through

On November 10, 1975, the United Nations went on an anti-Zionism tear. There were two disgraceful resolutions passed on that day, UNGA 3376 and 3379. UNGA 3379 was known as the “Zionism is Racism” resolution which uniquely defined the national aspirations of Jews to reestablish their homeland as racist. It took until 1991 for the United States to successfully repeal that resolution.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then the American ambassador to the United Nations, addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Nov. 10, 1975, the day the General Assembly adopted the “Zionism is racism” resolution. Moynihan said that the U.S. “will never acquiesce in this infamous act.”

However, UNGA 3376 still lives and threatens. It established the “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.” The committee granted special “inalienable” rights only to Palestinian Arabs, that they alone had the right to “national independence and sovereignty.” Do the Kurds have that right? What about Yazidis? How about Nevadans? No one has the right to an independent state, only to self-determination.

The committee also enshrined “The exercise by Palestinians of their inalienable right to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted.”

If the United Nations maintains the position that Palestinians have the “inalienable right” to move into homes that ancestors lived in during the 1940’s (even if they were just renting or the homes no longer exist), that same logic demands that Jews must be able to move into the homes that they own and lived in the Sheik Jarrah section of Jerusalem before being expelled by the invading Jordanian army. Either the UN must support the eviction of the Arab squatters in Sheik Jarrah today or nullify the right of return for all Palestinians.

The US may have prevailed at eliminating a single “Zionism is Racism” resolution in 1991, but the Biden administration is seemingly fine with the UN still treating the Jewish State with utter contempt and complete hypocrisy as it manufactures special rules uniquely for Palestinian Arabs.

Related First One Through articles:

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians”

The United Nations’ Adoption of Palestinians, Enables It to Only Find Fault With Israel

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

A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA

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Voices of/to the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Posted on May 12, 2021 by First.One.Through

People consider what actions they can take when they are upset by the situations around them. When looking at the violence in Israel, a place to direct attention is the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The committee is responsible for legislation regarding foreign affairs, national security and arms control. The committee has a direct impact on U.S. policy.

The committee members include Democrats and Republicans, both pro- and anti-Israel voices. They include:

Democrats: Gregory Meeks (NY) (Chairman); Brad Sherman (CA); Albio Sires (NJ); Gerald Connolly (VA); Theodore Deutch (FL); Karen Bass (CA); William Keating (MA); David Cicilline (RI); Ami Bera (CA); Joaquin Castro (TX); Dina Titus (NV); Ted Lieu (CA); Susan Wild (PA); Dean Phillips (MN); Ilhan Omar (MN); Colin Allred (TX); Andy Levin (MI); Abigail Spanberger (VA); Chrissy Houlahan (PA); Tom Malinowski (NJ); Andy Kim (NJ); Sara Jacobs (CA); Kathy Manning (NC); Jim Costa (CA); Juan Vargas (CA); Vicente Gonzalez (TX); Brad Schneider (IL)

Republicans: Michael McCaul (TX); Christopher Smith (NJ); Steve Chabot (OH); Joe WIlson (SC); Scott Perry (PA); Adam Kinzinger (IL); Lee Zeldin (NY); Ann Wagner (MO); Brian Mast (FL); Brian Fitzpatrick (PA); Ken Buck (CO); Tim Burchett (TN); Mark Green (TN); Andy Barr (KY); Greg Steube (FL); Dan Meuser (PA); Claudia Tenney (NY); August Pfluger (TX); Peter Meijer (MI); Nicole Malliotakis (NY); Ronny Jackson (TX); Young Kim (CA); Maria Elvira Salazar (FL)

Some of the committee members have spoken recently about Israel:

Chairman Gregory Meeks (general concern): “I am deeply concerned by recent violence in Jerusalem perpetrated by both Israeli and Palestinian mobs. To stoke the flames further, Hamas fired dozens of deadly rockets and mortars into Israel. All these acts of violence should be condemned by responsible leaders, Israeli and Palestinian. The Israeli National Police, who are responsible for ensuring safety and order in the city, must use precision and wisdom to focus on those engaging in violence and criminality, whomever they may be, and ensure the rights and freedoms of all residents of the city, particularly during holy periods. The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is deeply concerning. The United States believes Jerusalem must be a city in which coexistence, not violence, reigns, and it is up to the residents, leaders, and officials, to ensure that it is.”
Ilhan Omar (anti-Israel): “Israeli air strikes killing civilians in Gaza is an act of terrorism. Palestinians deserve protection. Unlike Israel, missile defense programs, such as Iron Dome, don’t exist to protect Palestinian civilians. It’s unconscionable to not condemn these attacks on the week of Eid”
Joaquin Castro (anti-Israel): “The forced displacement of Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem is illegal and unacceptable. The Biden administration must stand up for the rights of the Palestinian families in #SheikhJarrah and urge the Israeli government to stop these evictions.“
Lee Zeldin (pro-Israel): “An attack on Israel is an attack on the United States. Our nation should stand shoulder to shoulder with our greatest ally in the world as it is indiscriminately targeted by Hamas terrorists launching rockets at innocent civilians.“
Ted Deutch (pro-Israel): “Congress is committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and its ability to defend itself, by itself, against persistent threats. Our aid to Israel is a vital and cost-effective expenditure which advances important U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region. For decades, Presidents of both parties have understood the strategic importance of providing Israel with security assistance.“

*David Duke, head of the notorious hate group the KKK, celebrating Ilhan Omar’s attack on the “ZOG” (Zionist Occupation Government*)

Click on the links above which go directly to each committee member’s contact page and share your thoughts about what is going on in Israel today.

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Ilhan Omar Isn’t Debating Israeli Policy, She is Attacking Americans

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Bernie Sanders’ Antisemitic and Anti-Zionist Friends

The Middle East with American Leaders that Back Friends and Punish Enemies

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Jerusalem Population Facts

Posted on May 10, 2021 by First.One.Through

Anti-Israel people and organizations throw around pernicious smears that Jews are “colonial invaders” that engage in “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs, and other attacks which have no basis in fact, in an attempt to win points, money, land and other goodies from Israel and pro-Palestinian supporters.

So let’s review actual numbers rather than a narrative of an upset Arab shopkeeper talking to CNN.

Population Breakdown

As of 2019, the population of Jerusalem was 936,400. It stands as the largest city in Israel, twice the population of Tel Aviv with 460,600 people.

The breakdown in Jerusalem was 355,300 in western Jerusalem, which was 98.6% Jewish, and the northern/eastern/southern section of the city with 581,100 people, of which 39.1% were Jewish. Overall, the city was 61.7% Jewish and 38.3% Arab. The 61.7% Jewish population was the lowest percentage in the city since 1946. Jerusalem has had a continuous Jewish majority since the late 1860’s.

When Israel officially annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem and declared the unified city as its capital in 1980, there were 407,100 people in the city, of which 74% were Jewish. From 1980 to 2019, the population of the city grew 2.3 times, with the Jewish population growing 1.9 times and the Arab population growing 3.4 times. To state that Israel is committing “ethnic cleansing” in Jerusalem while the growth of Arabs dwarves the growth of Jews is patently absurd.

*The population growth in Jerusalem of Arabs is significantly higher than for Jews.*

In every year since 1978 (with the sole exception of 1990), the growth rate of Arabs in Jerusalem exceeded the annual growth rate of Jews. That fact is also true of the growth rate of Arabs in the country generally. The sole year of exception, 1990, saw a huge influx of Jews from Russia which accounted for the anomaly.

The growth of Jews has principally come as a result of natural population growth. The fertility rate of Jewish women in Jerusalem now stands at 4.3 children, up from 3.7 in 2000. That compares to the fertility rate of Arab women in Jerusalem which has been in decline, down to 3.2 in 2019 from 4.3 in 2000. Jewish women crossed the Arab fertility rate in 2012 and have continued to outpace Arab fertility rates since then. The change has led to a slowdown in the Arab growth rate which grew at annual rates of 3.6%, 3.1% and 2.6% for the periods 1990-2000, 2000-2010 and 2010-2019, respectively.

Not surprisingly, the death rate for Jews exceeds that of Arabs as the Arabs have a higher percentage of youths.

Housing

The lack of affordable housing has been the main issue driving a net negative migration of Jews out of Jerusalem. In 2019, over 20,000 Jews left Jerusalem to places like Beit Shemesh, Tel Aviv and Beitar Illit. That compared to fewer than 12,000 Israeli Jews who moved to Jerusalem from Bnei Brak and the cities mentioned above. Jerusalem trailed all major cities in the construction of new apartments (37% between 2017-2019), including in the cities of Rishon LeZion, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petah Tikva.

Both Jews and Arabs have freedom to move within Jerusalem. In 2019, of the 52,390 people who moved homes within the Jerusalem municipality, roughly 67% were Jews, close to the 62% of the city’s population. In 2018, the percentage of Jews moving within the city was lower at 60% and the Arabs at 40%.

Even while the population of Arabs in Jerusalem skyrocketed relative to Jews, the density of Arabs in their homes was cut significantly. In 1990, there was an average of 2.3 Arabs living in each room in Jerusalem; that number was cut to 1.8 Arabs per room by 2019, an improvement of 22%. Over the same period, the density of Jews in homes barely moved from 1.1 to 1.0 people per room. The overall improvement was driven by two factors: increased housing for Arabs and construction of larger apartments.

In 1990, there were 23,600 Arab households in Jerusalem, a figure that grew 188% to 68,000 in 2019. The total number of Jewish households increased a relatively modest 64% in comparison over the same timeframe. The second factor of bigger apartments in the city is a recent trend. Since 2017, over 30% of new dwellings have more than five rooms, reversing a historic trend which saw more smaller apartments. As recently as 2016, 64% of new apartments were built with four rooms; in 2020, 62.4% were built with five or more.

*The growth of Arab households in Jerusalem dwarves the growth in the number of Jewish households.*

Citizenship

After Israel took eastern Jerusalem from the Jordanians in a defensive war in 1967 and then annexed it, the Israeli government afforded all of the Arab residents to apply for citizenship. While few did so in the early years, over the past ten years, roughly 400 Jerusalem Arabs were granted Israeli citizenship annually. That number spiked to 1,200 people in 2019, as the Israeli government put more resources into expediting the citizenship review process.

The charges of Jewish “colonialists” committing “ethnic cleansing” against Arabs in Jerusalem are not simply outrageous lies but a disgraceful cover-up of the actual attempted mass Arab genocide of Israeli Jews right after the Holocaust, and the actual ethnic cleansing of the Jews from their holiest city of Jerusalem by Jordanian and Palestinian Arabs.

Related First One Through articles:

Will the UN Demand a Halt to Arabs Moving to Jerusalem?

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The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

NY Times Select “Evictions” in Jerusalem

Al Jazeera (Qatar) Evicts Jews and Judaism from Jerusalem. Time to Return the Favor

Oh Abdullah, Jordan is Not So Special

Jerusalem’s Old City Is a Religious War for Muslim Arabs

NY Times Select “Evictions” in Jerusalem

Posted on May 9, 2021 by First.One.Through

The anti-Zionist New York Times is accelerating its attacks on the Jewish State with a narrative that Jewish Israelis are racists as it moves towards accusations of apartheid. It would seem that the Gray Lady is newly interested in evictions when it comes to illegal Arab squatters as opposed to Jewish families thrown out of their homes in their most holy city.

On May 8, 2021, the Gray Lady printed an article “As Court Decision Nears, Battle over Evictions in East Jerusalem.” The article noted that the Israeli Supreme Court will soon rule on whether to evict Arab residents of Jerusalem (the Times calls them “Palestinians of East Jerusalem”) who moved into homes “vacated” by Jews in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. The article failed to state that Jordan (and four other Arab armies) invaded Israel in that war, evicted all of the Jews from Judea and Samaria including the eastern portion of Jerusalem in an act of ethnic cleansing, illegally annexed the region in 1950, and then granted Jordanian citizenship to all Arabs in 1954 while specifically excluding Jews in a further highly anti-Semitic action.

*The New York Times on May 8, 2021 article about Israel*

Instead, the Times said that “Jordan captured the area, including East Jerusalem in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948” making East Jerusalem sound like an actual city rather than the fact that Jordan invaded Jerusalem and seized the eastern half CREATING “EAST JERUSALEM,” an entity that existed until Jordanians attacked Israel again in a war that resulted in Israel reunifying the city.

The paper had the temerity of calling the Jews who moved back into their homes in the reunified capital as “settlers.” Recasting people moving back into their homes nineteen years after being evicted in a brutal act of ethnic cleansing as new foreign interlopers, is something that only an alt-left anti-Zionist can explain.

To support its jaundiced narrative, the Times quoted an Israeli who said that Jews have an ancient connection to the city so they have a right to keep the city Jewish, making the Jewish claim to the area seem ancient and fanatical. The Times statement was designed to be inflammatory and distracted readers from the legal property rights of the Jewish owners. If the paper wanted to add historical context to the story, it could have added the fact that Jerusalem has had a Jewish majority for over 150 years. Jews living in the eastern part of the Jerusalem is not recreating a 2,000-year old factoid, but a continuation of Jews living – and being a majority – in the city for centuries.

Jerusalem Day, a holiday marking the reunification of the city divided by war, is also a moment to celebrate the end of the anti-Semitic Arab ethnic cleansing in Judaism’s holiest city. This year, it should also be celebrated with writing to The New York Times at letters@nytimes.com and corrections@nytimes.com to demand the paper stop its misinformation campaign regarding Israel, ignoring Jerusalem’s Jewish majority since the 1860’s and the eviction of Jews from the eastern half of the city at the hands of invading Arabs. The false narrative promoted by anti-Zionists is the basis for outrageous declarations like UNSC Resolution 2334, which advocate for a Jew-free “East Jerusalem,” and a reinstitution of the ethnic cleansing program of 1949 to 1967.

Related First One Through articles:

Ending Apartheid in Jerusalem

The New York Times Inverts the History of Jerusalem

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

The Green Line Through Jerusalem

The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

The Remarkable Tel Jerusalem

750 Years of Continuous Jewish Jerusalem

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Featured Idiot: John Brennan, Obama’s CIA Chief

Posted on April 28, 2021 by First.One.Through

On April 27, 2021, The New York Times offered its readers an opinion piece by former President Obama’s Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan. His ridiculous piece was called “Why Biden Must Watch This Palestinian Movie.“

John Brennan, Former Director of the CIA (photo: Al Drago, The New York Times)

There are too many lies and omissions to do a line-by-line review but some major themes emerge which highlight Brennan’s willful blindness of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Major Lie #1:
Israel No Longer Has Security Concerns

Brennan noted that in his visit from Jordan to Israel in 1975, Palestinian Arabs had to go through aggressive security screening which he understood as “I knew that Israel had legitimate security concerns in the aftermath of the 1967 and 1973 wars, worries that had been heightened by attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets by Palestinian terrorist organizations.” Those “worries” included wars to annihilate the Jewish State in 1967 and 1973, and the Arab world’s “Three No’s” regarding making peace, recognizing and negotiating with Israel. The Palestinian attacks were not limited to Israel but countries which supported the Jewish State, and included the assassination of U.S. Presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy as well as tens of airplane hijackings.

Brennan commented that today’s world is a far cry from his 1975 experience, as Israel struck peace agreements with many Arab nations and made “significant progress in reducing violence carried out by Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories,” with the exception of Hamas.

First, well over twenty Arab and Muslim countries still refuse to recognize Israel. Those Arab countries which have recently welcomed relations with the Jewish State were loudly condemned by Palestinians.

Second, the reason that there has been such a reduction in violence is because of the security barrier that Israel erected in reaction to the so-called “Second Intifada.” It is that very security barrier that Brennan criticized in the article, with a completely fabricated reason for that barrier’s existence:

“Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spearheaded relentless expansion of settlements in the West Bank. That expansion has brought along more concrete walls, security barriers and control points, further reducing the spaces where Palestinians can live, graze their flocks, tend their olive groves and vegetable gardens without being challenged by their occupiers.”

As President Biden is fond of saying, that’s complete “malarkey.” Palestinian Arab terrorism brought the security barrier, not Jewish family homes.

The Second Intifada – not waged from Gaza but from the “West Bank” – was omitted from Brennan’s narrative. The “stabbing intifada” and the “car ramming intifada” from the West Bank in 2015 and 2016 were similarly ignored.

Further, the Muslim and Arab actors encircling and threatening Israel are irrelevant in Brennan’s opinion. The Islamic Republic of Iran has stated its desire to destroy Israel, yet Brennan’s boss gave the country over $100 billion and a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran supports Hezbollah in Lebanon (which fought a war with Israel in 2006), Syria and Hamas in Gaza, each at Israel’s borders.

Brennan continued in his imaginative telling of history that former President Trump “senselessly severed funding to the Palestinian Authority.” Trump took those actions specifically because acting President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas refused to stop inciting violence against Israelis by committing to send monies to Palestinian terrorists.

So much for Palestinian Arabs and the Muslim world being peaceful and welcoming Israelis.

Major Lie #2:
Palestinians Have Made No Progress Towards Autonomy

Brennan added that “Despite sharply reduced tensions between Israel and the Arab world, the Palestinian people themselves have seen no appreciable progress in their quest to live in their own sovereign state.” Really? Since 1975 there has been no progress?

Israel handed many cities and towns – including the holy city of Bethlehem which was designated to be an international city in the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan – to the Palestinians in the 1990’s. This was the first time that local Arabs every had sovereignty in the region.
Israel abandoned Gaza in 2005. It was rewarded with wars from the region in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Missiles and arson balloons continue to bombard Israeli civilian centers from the strip.
The Palestinian Authority was created in the 1990’s as part of several agreements with Israel. The PA last held presidential elections and legislative elections in 2005 and 2006, respectively. At that time, the Palestinians elected a Holocaust denier as the president and the terrorist group Hamas which is sworn to the destruction of Israel to 58% of the parliament. The front-runner in the proposed 2021 presidential elections is a terrorist in an Israeli jail convicted of killing five and injuring many.
Despite Palestinians having autonomy in Gaza, an outrageous 77% of Gazans support armed attacks against Israeli civilians in a December 2020 Palestinian poll.

Palestinians have made significant advances towards independence. It has not reduced their quest for Israeli blood.

Inverted Cause-and-Effect; Upside Down Conclusions

Brennan’s fictitious narrative of the security barrier is emblematic of his distorted vision of the steps towards an enduring peace. Ignoring the fact that the security barrier was needed and built to stop West Bank Palestinians from slaughtering Israelis, and retelling it as something Israel elected to erect to protect Israeli “settlements”, turned Israelis into the aggressors rather than the victims.

Brennan wrote that Palestinian children “grow up traumatized by injustice, discrimination and violence. They live with the feeling that their existence is controlled by people who don’t care about their welfare, their safety or their future.” This is upside down. Brennan argued that the “people who don’t care” and make their lives miserable are Israelis instead of the Palestinian leadership which uses its resources for weaponry to attack Israel and for “martyr payments” to terrorists.

So Brennan celebrated Biden restarting the money spigot even though the Palestinians have not changed their violent activities.

The Times featured Obama’s CIA chief’s distorted view of history and of the present in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Ignoring reality six years ago, the Obama administration enriched and empowered a state sponsor of terrorism. Brennan now hopes that the new Biden administration will similarly be oblivious to Palestinian lies and loathing, and enrich and create a new state sponsor of terrorism.

Related First One Through articles:

Israel: Security in a Small Country

Seeing Security through a Screen

Cause and Effect: Making Gaza

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Michigan’s Slide on Israel

Posted on April 15, 2021 by First.One.Through

When Israel declared its new state on May 14, 1948, U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) supported Democratic President Truman’s quick recognition of the Jewish State. In his capacity as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said:

“The prompt recognition of the provisional government as the de facto authority in the new State of Israel is the logical and proper step following the termination of the British mandate…. It responds to a basic decision taken at the United Nations at our instance. It is a positive actions after many months of critical and unhappy indecision.“

The State of Michigan has changed a lot in its attitudes towards Israel since 1948.

In 2019, the state had the second highest total Arab population, just behind California, counting 221,631 persons, or about 2.2% of the state which perhaps changed the tone regarding policies towards Israel. In November 2018, the state elected Rashida Tlaib to Congress and re-elected her two years later. Born in Detroit, MI, she is the descendant of Palestinian Arabs and the most anti-Israel voice in Congress today. In January 2021 she said:

“I think it’s important to understand that Israel is a racist state… they don’t believe that [Palestinian Arabs] are equal human beings that deserve to live.“

On March 12, 2021, Tlaib penned a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that incorrectly called “Palestine” an actual entity and falsely claimed that Israel had an obligation to provide COVID-19 vaccines to people in Gaza, the neighboring strip administered by a U.S.-designated terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction.

The letter continued with lies denouncing “Israel’s ongoing colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” as if East Jerusalem was an actual place rather than a footnote related to a city once divided by war for the years 1949-1967. Further, the “Palestinian West Bank” is Area A which Israel handed to the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo Accords. There was never a “Palestinian West Bank” before then, and it is not “colonized” by Israel.

Tlaib wrote the letter with Mark Pocan (D-WI) and secured signatures from Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Marie Newman (D-IL), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Jim McGovern (D-MA), Andre Carson (D-IN), Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Hank Johnson (D-GA). All Democrats.

At the time of Israel’s founding, a leading Republican senator from the state of Michigan worked with a Democratic administration to support the Jewish State. Unfortunately, 73 years later, we see far-left Democrats following a shrill Congresswoman from Michigan in aggressively trying to pull this Democratic administration from supporting Israel. As it relates to Israel, mainstream Republicans and Democrats have more in common than either party has with the Socialist fringe inside the Democratic party.

Related First One Through articles:

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The Palestinian-American You Never Heard Of: Issam Akel

Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

The Mourabitat Women of Congress

The Veil of Hatred

Conditional U.S. Support in The Middle East

“Occupation”-Washing Honor Killings

Palestineism is Toxic Racism

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel

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NY Times Alternative Facts: Area C

Posted on March 22, 2021 by First.One.Through

The New York Times has an aggressive re-education effort about the world. It distorts history and facts in its enterprise, particularly when it comes to Israel.

A March 21, 2021 article was designed to elicit empathy for Palestinian Arabs, which is the anti-Israel’s paper common practice and right. What is unfortunate is not simply the bias but distortion of truth.

March 21, 2021 New York Times article about Palestinian sheep hearders suffering under Israeli “occupation”

The paper’s background to the area commonly known as the “West Bank” was as follows:

“The Israeli government’s explanation for the demolitions dates back to the 1990s Oslo Accords with the Palestinians. The agreement gave Israel administrative control over more than 60 percent of the West Bank, including most of the Jordan Valley, pending further negotiations which were meant to be completed within five years.

“But over two decades of talks, the two sides have failed to agree on a deal, so Israel retains control of the lands – known as Area C – and has the right to demolish homes built there without planning permission.”

The 1993 and 1995 Oslo Accords did not “give Israel administrative control” over area C; the Accords gave the Palestinian Authority (PA) control over Areas A and B. Israel has had administrative control of the West Bank for over fifty years. The Israelis gave the Palestinians the opportunity to control an area for the first time in history.

The Israelis were willing to give the PA more lands, including the vast majority of Area C in 2000. Not getting 100% of their stated desires, the Palestinians launched what is gently described as the “Second Intifada,” a murderous guerilla war waged for four years until Israel was able to halt the Palestinian killers by constructing a security barrier.

Israel handed additional lands to the Palestinians in 2005, as it withdrew from the Gaza Strip. That action led to wars from Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014 followed by West Bank car ramming and stabbing attacks in 2015 and 2016. The Palestinian actions destroyed any notion of Israel ceding control of more land to an entity hell-bent on murder. This reality is a far cry from the Times narrative that “the two sides failed to agree on a deal.”

Lastly, the Times, which forever likes to use harsh terms like “occupation” and “illegal” for Israel, is loathe to point out Palestinian terrorism and illegal activities. Like “illegal aliens” in the United States being called “undocumented immigrants,” the Times sanitized the illegally built Arab structures by claiming they were simply completed “without planning permission.”

The New York Times is deliberately posting ahistorical information to sway its readership to take a positive view of Palestinian Arabs and a negative view of Israel. It is part of the left-wing mantra to engage globally by distancing America from allies like Israel and warming relationships with state sponsors of terrorism like Iran.

Related First One Through articles:

Names and Narrative: It is Called ‘Area C’

Importing Peaceful Ideas to the West Bank

The 1967 War Created Both the “West Bank” and the Notion of a Palestinian State

American Leaders Always Planned on Israel Absorbing Much of the West Bank

The New York Times Excuses Palestinian “Localized Expressions of Impatience.” I Mean Rockets.

Names and Narrative: The West Bank / Judea and Samaria

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

NY Times Alternative Facts on Palestinian Elections

NY Times Will Not Write About Arab Pogroms

The NY Times Will Not Write About the Preferred Violence of Palestinians

NY Times Disgraceful Journeys

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Christians Love the Jewish State

Posted on March 7, 2021 by First.One.Through

The Catholic Pope went to Iraq in March 2021 to visit the land that used to be home to nearly two million Christians. A country which was at one time an example of coexistence, routed its Jews in the 1940’s and 1950’s and other religious communities over the past decades. The Christian population has plummeted by 80 per cent.

Upon arriving in Iraq, Pope Francis said “Iraq has suffered the disastrous effects of wars, the scourge of terrorism and sectarian conflicts often grounded in a fundamentalism incapable of accepting the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic and religious groups.” He used the term “fundamentalism” without tying it to Islam, so as to not offend his hosts and trying to build bridges to salvage the remains of the Christian community.

No one is confused about the situation.

Open Doors, a Christian advocacy group, published its 2021 World Watch List highlighting the 50 worst countries for Christians. Other than North Korea (#1) and India (#10), all of the worst anti-Christian countries had a Muslim majority. Not surprisingly, almost all of these countries have seen their Christian populations decline.

Yet, about 500 miles away from Iraq, next to war-torn Syria, lies the new Garden of Eden, a sanctuary for Christians in the center of the Middle East/ North Africa (MENA): the Jewish State of Israel.

When the Modern State of Israel was founded in 1948, there were 34,000 Christians in the country. That number has grown by 5.2 times, to 177,000 today. It is a rate higher than the growth of the Christian population worldwide and dwarves the rate of change of Christians in the MENA region.

Christian tourists also love visiting Israel. In 2018, Christians made up 56% of the tourists visiting the modern Jewish State. The country actively encourages Christians to come visit to see the birthplace of Christianity and visit sacred sites.

Being baptized in the Jordan River are Latin celebrities, from left, Zuleyka Rivera, Luis Alfonso Borrego, Andrea Escalona, Sherlyn González, and Carlitos Perez-Ruiz (Luis Fonsi’s manager). Photo courtesy of America’s Voices in Israel

In 2015, the Christian community built a new museum in the heart of Israel’s capital of Jerusalem, the Friends of Zion Museum. It is designed to “tell the stories of both the dream to restore the Jewish people to their historic homeland and of the brave non-Jews who assisted them in the realization of this dream.” It is a feat of religious harmony enabled by the Israeli government in Judaism’s most holy city. It stands in sharp contrast to the treatment of Christians and Christianity elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

The Pope’s tour of the Muslim Middle East is a reminder to Christians everywhere of the uniqueness of the one Jewish State and reasons to continue its commitment to see Israel thrive.

Related First One Through articles:

The End of Together

Are Muslim-Majority Countries Anti-Christian?

The New York Times Thinks that the Jews from Arab Countries Simply “Immigrated”

A Flower in Terra Barbarus

Israel, the Liberal Country of the Middle East

The Arguments over Jerusalem

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