The New York Times remarkably parroted Palestinian propaganda on its pages as it wrote about Palestinian militants taking an Israeli teenager off of life support in a hospital, to hold his dead body as a bargaining chip.
In ten different sections of the article “Palestinians Join Forces with Israelis, Bringing Peace to a Teen’s Family,” the Times wrote that Israel holds the dead bodies of Palestinian terrorists in the hopes of dissuading future attacks. That narrative echoed throughout, seemingly giving an excuse for Palestinian Arabs deciding to do the same to Israelis.
Palestinians “hoped to exchange it for the corpses of dozens of Palestinians that have been held by Israel for years without burial.“
“… shifted rare attention on the Israeli practice of holding onto the bodies of slain Palestinians accused of terrorism.“
“the militants hoped to exchange Tiran for the bodies of dozens of Palestinians kept in Israeli mortuaries since 2016. Israel houses the unburied bodies of 111 Palestinians, 16 of them from Jenin, according to detailed records shared with the Times by the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog.”
“Israeli officials believe that Palestinians were all killed while committing violence, and that holding on to their bodies may help deter future attacks.”
“The militants actions also felt unethical to many Palestinians. While there is widespread Palestinian anger at Israel’s own practice of withholding Palestinian corpses, many felt the gunmen had picked the wrong target, particularly after it became clear that Tiran was a schoolboy, not a soldier.”
“‘It wasn’t a moral thing to do,’ said Muhammad Sabbagh, the head of a leadership council in the Jenin Camp. ‘From the beginning, the entire camp wanted to return the body.’“
“‘I immediately realized that a big mistake had been made,’ General Rajoub said in a phone interview. ‘We immediately planned how we would get the body back to the family.’“
“… a leading opponent of the Israeli occupation and a longtime critic of the Israeli policy of holding Palestinian corpses.“
“… the rare collaboration should not obscure wider Palestinian anger at Israel’s policy of withholding the bodies of dead Palestinians.”
“Dozens of ‘Palestinians families are waiting for their beloved sons,’ Dr. Tibi said. ‘For their corpses seized and captured by the Israeli occupation.'”
That’s a lot of time saying the same line over and again while NEVER mentioning that Israel only started holding the bodies of Arab terrorists after Palestinians refused to hand over the bodies of two Israelis killed in Gaza in 2014, Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin. Instead, the Times said that Israel carried out the practice as a form of punishment, seemingly introducing the horrific action in the conflict.
The biased article made the militants seem remorseful for their action because the dead person “was a schoolboy, not a soldier.” That’s outrageous. Palestinians routinely celebrate the murder of Jewish children as confirmed in their own polls, such as the one which showed 80% of Gazans and 50% of West Bank Arabs supporting the killing of a 17-year old girl on a nature hike. Just days before, the region’s Islamic terrorists celebrated the murder of a 16 year old Jewish boy on his way to school.
The obvious reason for returning the body of this boy was because he was Druze and not an Israeli Jew. The obvious Arab anti-Semitism was omitted and redirected by The Times. #AbsolutionViaRedirection
What’s more, the Times quoted the “Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, an independent Palestinian rights watchdog,” which is NOT independent. It is an anti-Israel European-funded organization that has been vilifying Israel for years, as reported by NGO Monitor.
This week, Palestinian terrorists killed a young Israeli boy and kidnapped his body from a hospital, an action they have been using for many years, however, they decided to return the body after they realized the Israeli wasn’t a Jew. Readers of The New York Times were spun a different story. The anti-Israel propaganda piece penned over-and-again that Israel has been unilaterally keeping dozens of Palestinians corpses for many years, angering Palestinians waiting to bury their sons, which caused some militants to take a similar action, which they immediately regretted as immoral.
That’s Absolution via Inversion, a favorite of the anti-Israel media which falsifies that Israeli racism and brutality are the root cause of the conflict, not the refusal of Arabs to accept Jews living in their homeland.
On November 22, 2017, a young girl named Hodaya Nechama Asulin passed away. She had been living in vegetative state for almost seven years. She had been injured when a bomb blew up while she waited for a bus in Jerusalem.
Hodaya Asulin, back when she was 14 years old
On March 23, 2011, Hussein Ali al-Qawasmeh, a married Palestinian man and father of five from Hebron, went to Jerusalem. He was appalled to see Jews freely walking around in a city that he considered a purely Islamic holy place. His frustration at seeing so many Jews led him to plant a bomb filled with shrapnel near a bus stop. He managed to kill a Christian British woman named Mary Jean Gardner, who had worked for two decades in Africa doing humanitarian work. She had come to Jerusalem to study Hebrew at the Hebrew University, so she could translate the Bible into local African tribal languages.
The bomb explosion injured many others, including Hodaya. The blast damaged her brain stem and put her into a coma. She was 14 years old at the time.
Hussein Ali al-Qawasmeh was sentenced to life in prison in November 2013, for simply protesting the Judaization of Al Quds. He said “You occupied my land, stole my country, and killed by brothers, and now you expect me to give you some roses?! I do not regret what I did, I defended my country.”
People who believe that Arabs resort to terror also think that Jews living in Jerusalem is a well-documented crime against humanity. It is echoed daily at the United Nations, and the world is not surprised by frustrated Palestinians resorting to violence to purge the colonial-settler-invader-fake Jews from the Islamic holy city and holy land.
Six Turkish civilians were killed by a terrorist on Sunday. The labeling of the killer and her murderous mission was made clear in news reports, as were the names of the innocent victims.
The same cannot be said of Israeli Jews slaughtered by a Palestinian Arab terrorist the next day.
New York Times calls out Kurdish terrorism and Turkish victims of attack, as well as relays US sympathies
Terrorist Designation
The New York Times wrote about “the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a Kurdish group that has been fighting a war with the Turkish state for decades. Turkey, the United States and the European Union all consider the P.K.K. a terrorist group.” The paper would only write six paragraphs later that “the P.K.K. denied any involvement in the bombing,” but the reader already knew the score – the P.K.K. are terrorists fighting Turkey and they seemingly committed the terrorist attack.
The next day, when a Palestinian Arab associated with the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad killed three Israeli civilians, there was no such accounting by the Times. Instead, the paper wrote that a “Palestinian assailant stabbed several civilians…. Three Israelis were killed and several more were severely injured.” The lone attacker was not associated with any terrorist group. The Times only offered at the very end of the article that “No Palestinian organization immediately took responsibility for the attack, but a spokesman for Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Tarek Izz al-Din, told an Islamic Jihad-linked television channel that his organization welcomed what he called the ‘heroic attack.’ He said that it came as a response to the Israeli election results and to Israeli politicians’ calls to take firmer action against the Palestinians, Kan radio reported.” Palestinian Islamic Jihad is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, much like the reference to the P.K.K., but the Times did not mention the terrorist designation for Palestinians.
The Times also did not quote the spokesman for Hamas, another designated terrorist group that “the operation demonstrates the ability of the Palestinian people to continue their revolution and defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque from daily incursions,” supporting the murder of Jews because Jews visit their holiest site, the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
American Sympathies
After the Times labeled the P.K.K. a terrorist group, it mentioned American sympathies for the Turkish victims. “The U.S. embassy in Turkey wrote on Twitter on Sunday that it was ‘deeply saddened’ by the bombing. ‘We extend our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives and wish a speedy recovery for the injured’ it said.“
The Times said nothing about the U.S.’s sympathies for the Israeli victims of terror. Not surprisingly, as it took the Biden administration some time to post a response… that equated the Jewish victims of terror with the murderer. The press release on the U.S. Embassy in Israel’s site stated “The United States is deeply concerned by the increased violence in the West Bank. We convey profound condolences to the families and loved ones of the Israeli and Palestinian civilians, including children, who have been killed in the past 48 hours. We strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack, which killed three Israelis and wounded three others. The recent period has seen a sharp and alarming increase in Palestinian and Israeli deaths and injuries, including numerous children. It is vital that the parties take urgent action to prevent further loss of life.” The U.S. would not take sides.
Humanizing the Victims
The Times devoted the final five paragraphs of the article to the Turkish victims. Names and ages were given. Pains of anguish were echoed in quotes from the grieving parents “‘She is my baby,’ she said. ‘I want a piece of her hair.’“
Nothing was said by The Times about the Israeli victims. They were: 50-year-old Tamir Avihai, a father of six from the settlement of Kiryat Netafim; 36-year-old Michael Ledigin, a father of two who moved to Israel with his family five years ago and lived in Bat Yam; and 59-year-old Mordechai Ashkenazi, also from Bat Yam.
Rationalizing Terror
The Times sought to give context to the Palestinian violence. It wrote that “Israel is to swear in a new Parliament later on Tuesday, after the Nov. 1 election, and the prime minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been working to put together a right-wing and religious coalition government with the help of far-right parties that have pledged to act more aggressively to protect Israelis. The attack also occurred on the anniversary of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s symbolic proclamation from exile in 1988 of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. That state has never materialized.” The Times essentially defended the terrorism and saying that it was a protest against a new “far-right” Israeli government, and in marking the anniversary of the P.L.O. declaring an independent state.
The Times incorrectly stated that the PLO’s declaration of independence only sought a state “in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.” The declaration was for the entirety of “Palestine”, including all of Jerusalem and all of Israel. It essentially rationalized the terrorism as an act of fighting for independence.
In contrast, the P.K.K., which is also seeking an independent Kurdish state, was only described as a terrorist group by the Times, without mentioning its desire for independence and sovereignty. It was thereby cast as a violent aggressor, while the Palestinian Arabs were painted as freedom fighters.
Celebrating Terror
While some media outlets like the Jerusalem Post noted that “In some parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians were documented celebrating the attack by handing out sweets to passersby and drivers,” which is a common occurrence in both Gaza and the West Bank after the murder of Jews, the Times decided to not report on it.
Maybe that fact was too much for its readers to handle.
The media repeatedly rationalizes and defends Palestinian Arab terrorism against Jewish civilians. Perhaps one should be content that the anti-Zionist media is not also celebrating the murder of Jews. At least, not yet.
For many years, the United Nations berated the Jewish State that it was using ‘disproportionate’ force against Palestinian Arabs. As the global body now attacks Israelis for proportionate responses to Arab terror, it is clear that the UN’s problem is really about Israel defending itself at all.
Consider the events of May 2021 when Gazans fired thousands of missiles into Israeli towns. The United Nations said “Owing to the vast asymmetry of power, the victims of this conflict are disproportionately Palestinians in Gaza, of whom over 74,000 have been forcibly displaced and made homeless, mostly women and children.“
After Israel responded to missile attacks in 2018, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution that “deplores the use of any excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and particularly in the Gaza Strip, including the use of live ammunition against civilian protesters, including children, as well as medical personnel and journalists, and expresses its grave concern at the loss of innocent lives.“
Similarly in July 2014, the UN Human Rights Council published an opinion that Israel’s “disproportionate use of force amounts to war crimes and must be brought to justice as it seriously violates international humanitarian law.“
The examples are numerous, that despite Israel acting in a defensive manner against terrorists, the UN seemingly wanted Israel to fire thousands of crude missiles into Gaza (a proportionate response to the Gazan actions), rather than using its limited sophisticated weaponry which was designed to target the evil actors. Of course, the damage Israel would have caused using thousands such crude missiles would have been much worse as the Arabs do not possess Israel’s Iron Dome defensive shield.
The issue in those past conflicts was not really about disproportionate force but disproportionate defenses. However, since there was no legal way of investigating and censoring Israel for disproportionate defenses, the United Nations attacked Israel for “asymmetry of power.”
The farce of UN anti-Israel prejudice continues today with the notion of “settler violence” in the West Bank.
According to the UN’s own biased accounting, West Bank Arabs commit more attacks than Israeli Jews living in Israeli territory of Area C every month. The “settlers” mostly use stones, just like the Palestinian Arabs. However, the UN only comes down harshly on the Israelis.
In March 2022, Tor Wennesland, on behalf of the UN Secretary General, addressed the UN Security Council about activities over the three months December 2021 to early February 2022. He noted that “Israeli settlers or other civilians perpetrated 144 attacks against Palestinians, resulting in 47 injuries and/or damage to Palestinian property,” while adding that “One Israeli civilian was killed by Palestinians, and 100 Israelis, including five women and one child, were injured by Palestinians in clashes, the throwing of Molotov cocktails, attacks and other incidents. In total, Palestinians perpetrated 277 attacks against Israeli civilians, resulting in injuries and/or damage to Israeli property.” By his own math, Palestinians committed twice a many attacks and injured twice as many civilians, including killing someone.
No matter. His report would disproportionately target Israelis.
“we deplore continuing attacks by Israeli settlers on ordinary Palestinians“
“Settler-related violence remains significant across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem“
“repeated raids by Israeli settlers on Burqa led to clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces“
“Israeli settlers drove a convoy to Huwwara, near Nablus, throwing stones at Palestinians and their property“
“I remain deeply concerned about the level of settler-related violence in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem“
There was no such detailed concern about Palestinian Arabs attacking Israeli civilians, despite engaging in violence more frequently.
When the Israeli military protects Israeli civilians against Palestinian terrorists, the world rebukes the Jewish State for “disproportionate force” so it can defend punishing the Jews in court. When Israeli civilians defend themselves with proportionate means, the anti-Semites drop the pretense of proportionality being the concern, and accuse the Jews of living in their homes illegally. The Arabs are cast as victims of Jewish aggression in all cases, despite instigating the violence and committing more attacks.
The United Nations has fostered the Arab-Israeli Conflict for decades, with disproportionate focus on perceived Israeli crimes and absolution of Arab terrorism. It is well past time for the global body to examine itself with the scrutiny it reserves for the Jewish State.
Police and rescue workers at the scene of a terror attack on Dizengoff street, central Tel Aviv. At least six people were wounded in the shooting, 3 severly. April 07, 2022. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/FLASH9015 Jews killed and 130 injured when Palestinian Arab blows up Sbarro pizza store in central Jerusalem, August 9, 2001Arab mob pelts Jewish man’s car with stones outside Jerusalem’s Old City, May 10, 2021. Photo by Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** בירושלים שוטרים שומר שומרים שער האריות נסיון לינץ נהג פצוע22 civilians killed and 50 injured when Palestinian terrorist blew up bus in central Tel Aviv in 1994Two Palestinians with axes and knives kill six people in Jerusalem synagogue, November 18, 2014Five members of the Fogel family stabbed to death in their sleep by two Arab cousins, March 11, 2011
Jewish children will freely live their lives
to ride a school bus,
play in a playground,
attend school,
take a nature hike,
relax in their bedrooms,
ride in a car with their fathers
Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at a school bus killing a 16-year old boy, April 7, 201114 rockets launched from Gaza pound Sderot, two landing in a children’s playground, February 24, 2020Hamas blew up the cafeteria of Hebrew University, killing nine and injuring 100, July 31, 200217-year old Rina Shnerb, killed while on a nature hike, from a bomb planted by the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, August 23, 201913-year old, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, stabbed to death while siting in her bedroom, June 30, 20161-year old Yonatan Palmer and his father Asher, 25, killed by Palestinian Arabs stoning their car, September 23, 2011
All Jews will be free to live anywhere and everywhere
not barred entry to their homeland,
not ethically cleansed from their land,
not denied citizenship,
not have their holy places destroyed,
allowed to pray openly at their holy sites,
Not to told that their basic physical presence is illegal
Arab riots of 1936-9 and lobbying made the British pass the White Paper which capped Jewish immigration during the Holocaust yearsTransjordan ethnically cleansed all Jews from Judea and Samaria during the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli WarJordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria and refused to grant any Jew who lived there citizenship in 1954Joseph’s Tomb vandalized by Palestinian Arabs, April 2022The Jewish Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, forbids Jewish prayerUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 declared Jews living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines to be doing so illegally
Throughout 2022, Palestinian Arabs committed more attacks against Israelis than the reverse. A fact obfuscated constantly by the United Nations.
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, gave his monthly update to the UN Security Council on October 28, 2022. Despite Palestinian Arabs attacking Israeli Jews with increasing frequency – by Wennesland’s own accounting – he chose to minimize Arab violence and focus on the attacks by Israeli Jews.
The nature of whitewashing Palestinian attacks takes many forms.
Portraying the Palestinian Authority as peaceful and Israeli politicians as violent. The PA incites violence with both words and actions, paying rewards to terrorists and calling the entirety of Israel an illegal settlement. Despite the PA being an integral part of the problem, Wennesland called for “Efforts are also urgently needed to empower and strengthen the Palestinian Authority and build towards a return to a political process.” Rather than call out widespread systematic PA incitement, Wennesland pointed to a single Israeli politician, a “right-wing Israeli Member of the Knesset led a group through Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, at one point brandishing a weapon and making violent threats.“
Stating Palestinians are mostly peaceful. The Palestinians launched a new terrorist group called the Lion’s Den in August 2022, causing Jews in the West Bank to seek to protect themselves from ongoing shootings and bomb threats. Settler attacks jumped immediately after the new terrorist group’s arrival and actions.
But the UN led its reporting of the monthly death toll by leading with Arab “demonstrations” instead of Arab violence: “In total, 32 Palestinians, including six children, were killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations, clashes, search-and-arrest operations, attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis, and other incidents.” It was absolution via inversion, led by omitting a key part of the narrative.
Relaying that Palestinian demonstrations are reactive and Israeli protests are provocative. The report’s bias can be seen clearly also in the way protests are described. Wennesland said that Palestinian “Demonstrations and protests spread from Shu’fat to East Jerusalem and led to clashes between Palestinians and ISF,” after Israel’s military imposed movement restrictions as it searched for Arab militants. It continued that Israel’s military “shot and killed five Palestinians” (never using the word terrorists), which then led to “Thousands of Palestinians subsequently demonstrated in Nablus, with protests spreading across the occupied West Bank. Amid the heightened tensions, Palestinians conducted general strikes and five days of civil disobedience campaigns across the West Bank, with further clashes between Palestinians and ISF.” All Arab actions are described as reactionary.
However, for Jews, the report states the opposite. “Settler-related violence and provocations has also increased during the reporting period, contributing to the dynamic of escalating violence in the occupied West Bank. Throughout the reporting period, settlers held numerous demonstrations across the West Bank, with protesters on multiple occasions blocking main roads, throwing stones and impeding movement for Palestinian residents. Tensions were particularly high around Nablus, where settlers impeded main routes for Palestinian residents and, on several occasions, groups of Israeli settlers entered the Palestinian town of Huwwara, south of Nablus, damaging Palestinian property and prompting clashes with residents, in some cases in the presence of Israeli Security Forces.”
Detailing Israeli Jews’ attacks but not those of Palestinian Arabs. Wennesland then relayed two specific incidents about “Israeli settlers”. It included no specific incidents about Arab violence. In his opening summary remarks, Wennesland had details on the number of injuries incurred by Palestinians (63) but had no such figure for Jews. Instead, he belittled the Palestinian attacks by noting that 100 of the 115 incidents “were stone-throwing incidents.” This is not surprising as “OCHA [United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs] began systematically tracking Palestinian fatalities in 2005,” but no organization tracks Palestinian attacks nor Jewish fatalities.
In September’s report, while Wennesland gave the figure of “128 attacks against Palestinians,” it gave no total for Palestinian Arab attacks. Presumably it was much higher, as it was in every month.
Normalizing and legitimizing the political-terrorist group Hamas. Capping off the report, Wennesland mentioned that Fatah and Hamas signed the Algiers Declaration, which amounted to reconciliation between the parties and an agreement to hold elections in which all parties could participate. He said “I echo the Secretary-General in welcoming the agreement and underscore the importance of Palestinian reconciliation for a viable, independent Palestinian State.” For the UN, a terrorist Palestinian state alongside Israel is still better than no Palestinian State.
Supporting a single party in the conflict – Palestinian Arabs. Wennesland summed up his report with empathy for the Arabs but not the Jews. He called for the world to join him in his rallying cry for Palestinian Arabs: “I see clearly the mounting frustration and anger of Palestinians in the face of decades of Israeli occupation. The Palestinian Authority urgently needs the economic support and political space to fully exercise its authority, including security, in areas under its control.“
The United Nations is a rabidly anti-Zionist organization which minimizes and excuses Palestinian Arab violence and embraces the political-terrorist group Hamas. Meanwhile, Israeli Jews living in Judea and Samaria are cast as terrorists for simply seeking to live freely. Doing so consistently and repeatedly, the UN invalidates itself as a potential force for good to resolve the long-running dispute in the holy land.
The Arab gang violence in Israel shows little sign of letting up.
In 2021, over 100 Israeli Arabs were killed in gang-related violence (reports range from 111 to 126 people killed). The violence in 2022 continues, with the latest Arab-Arab killing in the city of Lod on October 7.
First, Wafa which spends almost all of its efforts lambasting Israel, printed a headline which made it appear that Israel targeted a Palestinian child for execution. That couldn’t be further from the truth. This person was a victim of Arab-on-Arab violence.
Further, this person was an Israeli Arab, not a Palestinian from Area A in the West Bank. He died in the central Israeli city of Lod, which Wafa called Lydda.
Even more, the PA does not recognize the basic legitimacy of Israel as it wrote: “Palestinians in today’s Israel are those who stayed on their land following the creation of the occupying state in 1948 and their descendants. They make up about 20 percent of the country’s nine million people.“
The Palestinian Authority calls the State of Israel in its 1948-9 lines an “occupying state.” This is consistent with PA President Mahmoud Abbas calling Israel within “1967 borders” a “painful settlement.”
Palestinians do not differentiate between Haifa and Hebron, or Jaffa, Jerusalem and Jericho. In their narrative, the entirety of the land is Palestinian, and all Jews are settlers. Not only are the Jews falsely cast as illegal invaders, but criticized for callously letting Arabs kill each other.
If only local Arabs could manage their own affairs, they could have the paradise of the failed states of Lebanon or Syria.
Israeli Arabs protested in Umm al-Fahm, Israel against Israeli Police inaction to tackle Arab-on-Arab crime on February 5, 2021. One of the protestors carried a Palestinian flag.
Last week, fourteen Palestinian Arab factions met in Algiers and signed a declaration to hold elections within a year. The “Algiers Declaration” would advance proportional representation in the Palestinian National Council (PNC) and confirms that the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is the sole representative of Palestinian Arabs. It was symbolically signed in the same hall as Yasser Arafat announced the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Declaration was signed by a number of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including HAMAS and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as Fatah, the party of Mahmoud Abbas, the current president of the Palestinian Authority. The goal was seemingly to allow every Palestinian Arab – 14 million from around the world – and every “political” entity, including terrorist groups that seek the killing of Jews and destruction of Israel, to participate.
Fourteen Palestinian factions sign Algiers Declaration during a ceremony in the presence of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued a statement that he “welcomes the signing on 13 October of the Declaration of Algiers” and “underscores the importance of Palestinian reconciliation for a politically stable, economically viable, sovereign and independent State of Palestine.” It is unclear if the UNSG views a State of Palestine as already in existence or aspirational. What is evident, is that he believes including terrorist groups in “reconciliation” and elections is commendable.
It is uncertain if elections will take place as envisioned. In the past, the PA has insisted on including Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem in elections which Israel forbade as it annexed the area. If Palestinians from around the world get to participate – including those in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as citizens in the U.S., Chile, Israel and elsewhere – perhaps Israel will permit Israeli Arabs to participate. Perhaps those countries which don’t recognize a Palestinian State or forbid dual citizenship would prohibit people from voting or force them to renounce their citizenship in their home countries.
However, it is likely that the various Palestinian groups will use this year for political advantage to prove they deserve support. This has historically been achieved through incitement and violent attacks against Israel. When Hamas launched missiles into Israel, its popularity soared according to Palestinian polls. When Abbas/Fatah praised “martyrs” and committed to continue the “pay-to-slay” program to fund terrorist actions against Israelis, it jumped in the polls.
President Abbas has already been reducing security coordination with Israel, as Palestinians see his rule as serving Israeli interests more than their own. His pullback has led to a spike in terrorist attacks against Israelis this year, and a need for more Israeli raids into PA territory to capture the terrorists, often uncoordinated with PA security teams. It has led to many more civilian deaths on both sides.
Almost all western countries and media have ignored this story, even while Qatar, a longtime supporter of the political-terrorist group Hamas, and Arab media have hailed the agreement. Perhaps the West is waiting for the Arab League Summit which is set to convene November 1 in Algiers. Can the larger Arab world or the more regional Palestinian factions unite in common cause? Perhaps, but historically, only with Jewish blood.
The attempt of some vocal members of the far left to suggest that being pro-Palestinian is a progressive value is an inversion of reality. The vast majority of Palestinian Arab society and leadership is systematically regressive, racist, homophobic, misogynistic and corrupt.
Gay Rights
Palestinian Arab society is extremely religious and abhors homosexuality. Many gay Palestinian Arabs flee lands under the control of the Palestinian Authority and seek asylum in Israel. One such man, Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh, 25 years old, had been living in Israel for two years as he feared that his Palestinian Arab neighbors would kill him. This week, his decapitated body was found in Hebron, near his family home.
Ahmad Abu Murkhiyeh (Social media)
Misogyny
Dozens of Palestinian women are killed every year in so-called “honor killings“, when family members kill a woman who brings “dishonor” to the family by not living a chaste lifestyle. Isra’a Ghrayeb was killed by her brother after she posted a video on Instagram of her meeting a man, bringing dozens of women out in protests. According to Palestinian law, Article 340 of the penal code allows a man to kill his wife if she committed adultery. Article 341 permits murder to protect “his honor, or somebody else’s life or honor,” essentially a double-“O” license to kill women.
Racism and Anti-Semitism
When Palestinian and Jordanian Arabs controlled Jewish holy sites, they banned Jews from visiting their sacred locations. In Hebron, they banned Jews from climbing above the seventh step of the Cave of The Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs. In Jerusalem, they banned Jews from living or visiting the Old City of Jerusalem, and destroyed all of the synagogues in the Old City from 1949-1967. Today, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority declared that in his vision of a future Palestinian State, there would not be a single Jew living anywhere.
The anti-Semitism is so blatant and systemic, that after the Jordanian and Palestinian Arabs ethnically cleansed Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem of all Jews in the 1948-9 war, it passed a citizenship act in 1954 that specifically gave Jordanian citizenship to everyone “not being Jewish.” The Jew hatred continues today, with 93 percent of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza holding anti-Semitic views according to the ADL, the most of any region in the world.
Climate Change
Palestinian Arabs have deliberately set fire to thousands of acres of Israeli land, burning forests and fields. A 2018 government report noted that “the entire eco-system of the western Negev has been affected. Trees that have stood for generations – preventing soil erosion, improving the carbon footprint and providing a habitat for birds and animals – have been destroyed. Wildlife – birds, turtles, snakes and lizards, jackals, foxes and wolves, wild boars, hedgehogs, bees and other insects – have been killed or lost their homes and their food sources. Experts estimate that it will take decades for the area to recover.” This is in addition to the thousands of tires that Palestinians burn which are extremely harmful to the environment.
The Carmia Nature Reserve burned by Palestinian arson attacks (Photo courtesy of Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
Reproductive Freedom
The Palestinian Authority bans abortion completely in any circumstance. It is one of only two dozen countries in the world with such severe restriction, together with countries including Haiti, Iraq and the Congo.
Religious Freedom
There is nothing so basic as freedom of religion, including changing one’s religion. Yet there are eight countries in the world – all Muslim – where the penalty for converting from Islam is death.
Palestinian Arabs are some of the most devoutly Islamic people in the world, with 89% supporting sharia law, only behind Afghanistan and Iraq. Among those Palestinians supporting sharia, 84% are in favor of stoning as the punishment for adultery and 66% believe Muslims who convert from Islam should be killed. Palestinian Arabs are only second to Pakistan in seeking a more sharia-based society.
Forever Wars
Nothing defines Palestinian society more than the active promotion of forever wars. To this day, the PA leadership refuses to recognize the legitimate historic and human rights of Jews to live in peace and sovereignty in their homeland. For over 100 years, Palestinian Arabs have been waging pogroms and wars slaughtering thousands of Jews with guns, bombs, rockets, knives, cars, stones and whatever implement they could use. The murderers become celebrated heroes in Palestinian society, with the PA paying the killers’ families thousands of dollars.
Supporters of the Palestinian Fatah movement march with a poster of female militant Dalal al-Mughrabi, who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, during a rally marking the 55th foundation anniversary of the political party in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on January 1, 2020. (Photo by Musa AL SHAER / AFP)
Rep. Rashida Tlaib said she is angry that people are “progressive except for Palestine,” but she has it upside down. It is Zionists and people who care about basic human rights who are shocked that anyone – let alone people who claim to care about human rights – can support the racist, homophobic, misogynistic, repressive Palestinian Arabs waging forever wars against the most persecuted people in the world.
There are some narratives that simply boggle the mind. Some are completely nonsensical and easily disproven. Others are seemingly spat out of desperation to belittle an enemy’s position. And a few are so twisted, they must have been hatched and sanctified by university professors.
Consider the phrase “European Settler Colonialism” to describe Jews moving to Israel.
Columbia University’s Rashid Khalidi was fond of the phrase. As recently as November 2017, on the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, he took the stage at the United Nations’ Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestine People. He used the expression in a number of ways:
“…Arab city dwellers, who observed with mounting concern the constant arrival of new European Jewish immigrants“
“the Declaration had been tailored to suit the desiderata of Zionism, a European colonizing project“
“The Palestinians were therefore in a triple bind, which may have been unique in the history of resistance of indigenous peoples to European colonialism. They faced the might of the British Empire in the era between the two world wars when not one single colonial possession, with the partial exception of Ireland, succeeded in freeing itself from the clutches of the European imperial powers.“
“Of the five European settler colonies established in Arab countries, only Algeria and Palestine remained colonised in the early 1960s“
“As the last two European settler-colonial powers in the Arab world, France and Israel formed a close alliance to coordinate the preservation of their settler colonies“
“Like France and Italy, the European Jewish Zionists claimed to be descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews and to be merely “returning” to their ancient land.”
“the pan-Jewishism of European Zionism, which sought to recreate the “Judaic” glories of the Palestinian Hebrews, who were appropriated as the ancestors of European converts to Judaism, was depicted as progressive and socialist.”
“Unhappy with its isolation as the last European settler colony in the Arab world, the Israelis provided logistical support to the French colonists,...”
Students have caught on. At a vote to boycott Israel at the University of Wisconsin in March 2017, one of the students took the theme one step further:
“The Israeli state was founded using the same nationalistic and exclusive principles that exploited Jews in Eastern Europe. The foundation built Israel to be as oppressive as the countries that destroyed Jewish homes, lives and pushed them out of Eastern Europe. Israel in its inception is not a Jewish idea but a European one.”
Imagine the depravity of the anti-Zionist university mindset today, that Israel is not even considered a Jewish idea but simply a tool of European colonial imperialism.
The outrageous sentiments are given succor at the United Nations and anti-Zionist media. That they need to be addressed and disproved is shameful but it goes to the heart of the prevalent false anti-Israel narrative peddled by those who seek a Palestinian State and need an anchor for their anti-Semitic beliefs.
Colonialism – The Desire To Gain Versus The Desire To Rid
Many European countries set up colonies around the world, including France, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Each country set up outposts to gain particular advantages in far away lands. Some sought raw materials like grain and minerals to export home. Some sought trade routes and new markets. Others brought missionaries to spread Christianity. Each country sought to exploit the new territory for selfish gain.
All, except for one case falsely-framed as colonialism: Zionism as “European settler colonialism.”
The anti-Semitic narrative describing Zionism as “European colonialism” is founded on two principle beliefs: that European countries desired to shed the continent of its Jews; and the further wish to weaken Muslim Arabs in the Middle East.
On the first concocted rationale, anti-Semitic anti-Zionists try to argue that the great powers of Europe wanted to collectively purge the region of its Jews. It is anti-Semitism at its most base and ugly, suggesting that Jews were universally unwanted foreigners in their midst.
The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pushed this argument in April 2018 that “[Lord] Balfour hated the Jews, but nevertheless, he gave them a state. The Russian foreign minister was well known for his hatred of the Jews, yet he said to [the Jews]: “Come, I will give you a state in Palestine.”” Abbas claimed that all European leaders hated the Jews and wanted to get rid of them and used Palestine as their dumping ground. The phrase “European settler colonialism” is deeply anti-Semitic in that it conveys that Jews are vile and unwanted.
The second premise of European colonialism in the desire to insert a foreign entity to weaken the supposed unity of Muslim Arabs in the Middle East is foolish as various European powers were dealing with many tribes in the region and building them up into functioning governments and countries. The British Mandate of Palestine is put forward by Arabists as something unique, when there were mandates for all of the lands that were to become independent countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, with the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Jews Have Nothing To Do With Ancient Israelites And Never Lived In Israel
The anti-Semitism of “European settler colonialism” extends beyond the invective that Zionism was launched by European leaders to ethnically-cleanse Europe of its Jews. It mocks Jewish history.
The acting President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral thesis on a particular form of Holocaust denial, which claimed that Jews have no connection or history in Israel, so early Zionists conspired with the Nazis to make life unbearable so that the Jews would be forced to emigrate to a foreign land. Abbas falsely asserted that Jews are descendants of Khazars, much like Columbia University’s Massad absurdly claimed that Jews pretend to be descended from “Palestinian Hebrews” (whatever that ridiculous phrase means), but really are a bunch of European converts who “appropriated” someone else’s history.
This repulsive narrative is a critical component for anti-Zionists because the definition of a “colony” means an “area under full or partial control of another country.” While France may have set up a foreign colony in Algeria, it is nonsensical to say that the entire European continent set up a joint colony for everyone’s benefit. But what choice do the anti-Semites have? If they are forced to recognize that Jews are from Judea and the land of Israel, then by definition it is not a Jewish colony but a righteous return of Jews from their diaspora. The phrase “European settler colonialism” is anti-Semitic in denying Jews their basic history in the land of Israel.
Jews Came To Palestine Before The Palestine Mandate
Anti-Semitic anti-Zionists argue that the European colonial project launched with Lord Balfour’s 1917 declaration and then the Mandate of Palestine in 1922. Those slightly more knowledgeable about history might point to Theodore Herzl’s First Zionist Congress in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland.
The reality is that Jews have always lived and moved to the land of Israel. During the last century of Ottoman rule (1800 to 1914), the Jewish population jumped more than 13.4 times. The Christian population only grew by 3.2 times over that period while the Muslim population barely moved, increasing only 2.1 times, meaning that no Muslims migrated to the holy land during that time, as such growth is the natural trend of births minus deaths.
The reason the Jews moved to the land is that the land is holy to Jews. Jews from all over the world pray facing Jerusalem, the only religion to do so. Jews are commanded to visit Jerusalem three times every year. There are commandments that Jews can only keep in Israel.
Saying that Zionism is a “European colonial project” is anti-Semitic as it denies the centrality and holiness of the land to Jews.
Israeli Jews Are Not European
The smear that “Zionism is Racism” was hatched by Muslim nations in the 1970’s, after the Arab world failed to destroy Israel for the third time (1948-9, 1967 and 1973 wars). The outrageous UN resolution was overturned by the United States in 1991, but the charge has been re-launched in modern times under the banner of “white supremacy”, “imperialism” and “European colonialism.”
The simple fact is less than one-third of Israelis have ancestors from Europe. As of 2018, only 31.8% of Jews were Ashkenazi, of European heritage, and 12.4% were from the former USSR. That compares to 44.9% who are Mizrahi and 3.0% from Ethiopia. The balance of Jews (7.9%) are of mixed heritage. Then there are 21.1% who are Arab (Muslim and Christian) and 5% are other groups including Ba’hai (a religion banned in several neighboring countries), Samaritans and others.
Saying that Israel is a creature of “European colonialism” is non-sensical at its most fundamental, as most Israelis do not come from Europe.
Poor Attempt To Distract From Muslim Arab Anti-Semitic Edicts
The charge that Zionism is based on European colonialism is anti-Semitic on many levels. It is used in a pathetic attempt to advance the cause of a Palestinian state, when in fact, it does the opposite by showing that Arabs are terrible anti-Jewish neighbors.
Admitting that Jews predate Arabs by thousands of years does not mean that Arabs have no history in the land, so stop pretending otherwise.
Admitting that the Temple Mount is only the holiest place for Jews does not mean that it holds no significance for Christians or Muslims.
Admitting that Jordanian/Palestinian Muslim Arabs banned Jews from entering the Old City of Jerusalem and the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron while they controlled it, does not mean that Jews will ban other religions from entering these sacred locations.
Admitting that Jordan issued an anti-Semitic citizenship law in 1954 that granted citizenship to people in Judea and Samaria, as long as they weren’t Jewish, doesn’t mean that the Jewish State of Israel will ban non-Jews from becoming citizens.
Admitting that most Israelis are not European Jews does not mean that Israel will constantly point out that the largest demographic in Israel are the Jews who came from Muslim Arab lands who were expelled and driven out of their homes.
The modern state of Israel is simply the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in their historic homeland. The attempts to vilify Israel as a product of European colonialism and imperialism is both false and deeply anti-Semitic, and actually hurts the Palestinian cause in showing their inability to live peacefully with the Jewish people.
