The Anti-Zionist Lexicon – Whitewashing Palestinians

Palestinian supporters who hate Israel use a variety of terms to whitewash the crimes and intentions of Palestinian Arabs. Below is a sampling with a review of the misdirection.

“Intifada”

The term “Intifada” means “Uprising.” It gives the sense that the movement is one of empowering the disenfranchised as a matter of protest rather than the reality of genocidal terrorism.

The “Second Intifada” which raged from roughly September 2000 to September 2004 witnessed Palestinian Arabs blowing up ice cream parlors full of children, school lunchrooms and buses. Over 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians were killed in the mayhem because the leadership of the Palestinians refused to accept anything less than 100% of their demands.

Intifada means war. It means terrorism. The call for an intifada is not a protest chant but an incitement to violence.

A pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on July 31 featured protestors chanting “globalize the Intifada” and other anti-Israel chants.

“Martyr”

The Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians are described as “martyrs” by Palestinians. They are held up as idols for Palestinian children when schools, soccer tournaments and public squares are named for the terrorists. The mothers and fathers of the killers are showcased on television telling the Arab public how proud they are of the killer’s sacrifice. The Palestinian Authority pays the families of the terrorists monthly stipends for their “contribution” of killing the enemy.

For clarity, the term “martyr” actually means “a person who is killed because of their religious beliefs.” Using the term for Palestinian terrorists turns Israel into racist murderers rather than victims of jihadi genocidal maniacs.

“Slain attackers”

Much like the term “martyrs,” pro-Palestinian press prefers to call Palestinian terrorists killed while committing murder as “slain attackers.” The word “slain” is defined as “to kill violently, wantonly, or in great numbers.” In other words, according to anti-Zionist rags like The New York Times, it is Palestinian Arab “attackers” who are killed violently and wantonly by Israelis. Not only are Israelis racists (see “martyrs” above) but also mass murderers.

“Resistance”

The political-terrorist group Hamas calls itself a “resistance force.” It is a designated terrorist group by dozens of western countries because of the hundreds of attacks it has perpetrated on civilians around the world. Its foundational charter is an anti-Semitic screed which calls for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. The people of Gaza continue to support killing Israeli civilians in every poll.

The Palestinian “resistance” is to the mere presence of Jews which they have made clear in 100 years of riots and wars, even though Palestinian supporters will portray the Arabs as only protesting “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

“Desperate”

Palestinian apologists claim that Palestinians are “desperate” which is why they take such vicious actions against Israeli civilians. That’s outrageous. Desperate people gladly take whatever they can; entitled people refuse to take anything less than full demands.

Palestinians have refused every offer for peace for generations. They demand a country without a single Jew living in it. They categorically refuse to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish State as part of a final settlement. A desperate people clinging for a chance at self-determination would never deny such things, unless their actual goal is to deny Jews of their own homes and country.

“Resorting to violence”

Anti-Israel opinion rags like The New York Times sometimes go beyond painting Palestinians as “desperate” people “resisting” Israeli occupation. It states that the political-terrorist group Hamas (which it never calls a terrorist group) has “resorted to violence.” The feeble-minded gray lady writes this despite the Hamas making its genocidal intentions public for the whole world to see.

“Impatient”

Doubling-down on a twisted portrayal of Hamas, The Times excuses violent flare-ups from Gaza as “localized expression of Palestinian impatience,” as it wrote on the front page of its May 6, 2019 paper. According to the anti-Israel paper, Israelis get shot because Gazans are impatient, not because they are the most anti-Semitic people in the world who are in favor of killing Israelis.

“Free Palestine”

Chants of “Free Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” and “we don’t want two states, we want all of it” are spun as simply a desire for equality in the holy land for Jews and Arabs. It is nothing of the sort but a call for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.

Liberal media inverts the “from the river to the sea” as actually the chant of Jewish extremists who want to annex the West Bank, an area that was part-and-parcel of the British Mandate which called for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland there.

“Arab Land”

Sorry, but Israel is not part of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s also not part of the League of Arab States. It’s also not European nor African. It’s a little swatch of land connecting many continents.

Are the people who use this expression arguing that land itself has the DNA of a particular people? Would the same people say that Europe is “White Land” or Africa is “Black Land?” If someone were to argue that some lands truly are part and parcel of a specialized group of people, they would have to admit that the Land of Israel is “Jewish Land,” as Judaism is the only religion with a tie to specific land.

The term “Arab Land” is deliberately designed to sever the thousands of years of history that Jews have in the land. It is an example of the fictitious narrative that “Jesus was a Palestinian” and not a Jew, in an attempt to not just evict the current Jewish presence in the land but to expunge the entirety of Jewish history.

“Dignity”

Politicians state over and again that Israel deserves “security” while Palestinians deserve “dignity.” It seems like such a simple ask of Israel, to afford the Palestinians some semblance of dignity.

But if the parameters of Palestinian dignity is that Jews cannot have sovereignty, cannot live in the West Bank, cannot pray on the Temple Mount, cannot buy land from an Arab and demands the denial of Jewish history, why should that sort of “dignity” be endorsed, let alone entertained?

“Refugees”

Palestinian supporters have used and abused the term “refugees” for Palestinian Arabs in ways that have no bearing on the word, and in doing so, harm over 30 million actual refugees fleeing war zones today.

The Palestinian Arabs cared for by UNRWA are not refugees but stateless. They deserve to become citizens of either a new country or an existing country but that doesn’t make a child whose grandparents left a town five miles away during a war a “refugee.” Yet, these Palestinian “refugees” are taking billions of dollars of support when such monies can be used for children actually fleeing for their lives to foreign lands where they don’t speak the language and have no family support or infrastructure.

A “Viable” State

Anti-Zionist supporters of the Palestinians argue that there are certain minimum standards that a new country of Palestine must have in order to be viable.

As discussed above, “viability” means that there can be no Jews. “Settlers” undermine the foundation of the country for some reason. While Arabs can live in Israel without destroying the state, seemingly a Jewish presence in Palestine undermines the very viability of the country.

Similarly, a Palestinian state would need to be much wider than Israel is today. If Israel were to annex land up to the town of Maale Adumim west of Jerusalem, critics warn that Palestine would be cut in two and non-viable with a country only 15km wide at one point. Meanwhile Israel is that wide along its main population centers without the cry to widen Israel.

“1967 Borders”

People use the term “1967 Borders” even though the 1949 armistice agreements struck between Israel and Jordan as well as between Israel and Egypt specifically stated that those lines have no meaning and do not function as borders.

Palestinian Citizens of Israel

Israel afforded all Arabs the opportunity to be citizens when it declared statehood in 1948 and affords all Arabs in Jerusalem to become Israeli citizens today. Over 20% of Israel’s population is Arab.

Pro-Palestinians don’t like the notion of “Israeli Arabs” as they think it somehow acknowledges the liberalism of Israel being an open society. Instead, they opt for the very wordy “Palestinian Citizens of Israel” to market the proposition that their tie to the land of Palestine is permanent as is their identity which are distinct from Israel. Should a new state of Palestine ever be created, there is no question that these same Palestinian propaganda promoters would call the Jews in the country “Palestinian Jews,” (G-d forbid, if they are allowed to live there), not “Israeli citizens of Palestine.”

“Palestinian East Jerusalem”

The anti-Zionist media will have you believe that “East Jerusalem” exists today even though it only existed as an artifice of war for 19 years that ceased to be over fifty years ago. To extend the fiction, they will promote that it is a Palestinian city, even though there is no recognized country of Palestine and no part of the city was ever conceived to be Arab in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.


The anti-Zionist lexicon is not only attacking the Jewish state but sanitizing Palestinian Arabs of their anti-Semitism and terrorism in an attempt to wish a State of Palestine into being. Everyone should readily recognize the abuse of language that has become mainstreamed by anti-Israel voices.


Related First One Through articles:

The Anti-Zionist Lexicon – Vilifying Israel

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land”

Christiane Amanpour is More Anti-Semitic Than Ilhan Omar

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The Hamas Body Snatchers

Hamas is a very popular political-terrorist group among Palestinian Arabs. According to recent polls, Palestinians support attacking Jewish civilians inside of Israel and were thrilled by Hamas’s rocket attacks against Israel a couple of months ago. Should Palestinian elections ever be held again, Hamas is expected to win both the presidency and the majority of parliament.

These facts are not new and are expected from the most anti-Semitic people in the world.

But beyond the blood lust desire to kill Jews and destroy Israel, what drives Hamas to abuse the dead?

On August 1, 2014, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, officers in the Israeli Defense Forces, were abducted and killed during a US-sponsored ceasefire between Hamasand Israel. Seven years later, Hamas continues to hold their bodies and refuses to return them to their families in Israel. It is a flagrant violation of human rights and decency and the United Nations does nothing.

Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin

Hamas’s mutilation of dead bodies is also a crime. They kill suspected collaborators and drag their bodies through the streets in an effort to intimidate the public, much like ISIS burning people alive.

Members of Hamas drag man through the streets of Gaza in November, 2012

This kind of barbarism is not confined to Hamas in Gaza. At the beginning of the Second Intifada, a mob broke into a police station and dragged two Israeli soldiers into a room where they killed them and then threw the bodies to the street where the Palestinian mob trampled them beyond recognition.

Today, people celebrate these atrocities and barbarians. In Amsterdam people chantHamas, Hamas, Jews to the Gas,” while in the streets of Brooklyn marchers call for the destruction of Israel.

And in the halls of Congress, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) says that the people of Gaza “just want to live” and have “dignity,” to shield their vile actions and intentions.

If Tlaib wants to put a pretty face on Hamas, the minimum she should do is to get the political-terrorist group to release the bodies of the two Jewish men who have been withheld from their families for last seven years.


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Palestinian Terrorist Groups

The mainstream narrative organizations (formerly known as “news outlets”) refuse to label Palestinian terrorist groups as such, preferring softer marketing terms like “extremist” and “militant.” To be clear, the United States and many governments specifically and officially designate foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) to “play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.

Here is a list of the Palestinian terrorist groups.

HAMAS. This terrorist group is responsible for hundreds of attacks and murder of civilians. It’s foundational charter reeks of anti-Semitism and calls for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. It is highly popular among Palestinians, winning 58% of parliament in 2006 and its leader is projected to win the presidency according to recent Palestinian polls (should elections ever take place), amounting to millions of supporters. The political-terrorist group runs Gaza, and has launched repeated wars and skirmishes against Israel.

Palestine Liberation Front (PLF).  Broke away from the PFLP-GC in mid-1970s. Later split again into pro-PLO, pro-Syrian, and pro-Libyan factions. Several terrorist attacks including the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and an attack near a beach in Tel Aviv.

Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Originated among militant Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the 1970s as a series of loosely affiliated factions rather than a cohesive group. Committed to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel through holy war. Conducted suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel. Has threatened to attack US interests in Jordan. Receives financial assistance from Iran and limited assistance from Syria.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Marxist-Leninist group founded in 1967 by George Habash as a member of the PLO. Joined the Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF) to oppose the Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 and has suspended participation in the PLO. Broke away from the APF, along with the DFLP, in 1996 over ideological differences. Has made limited moves toward merging with the DFLP since the mid-1990s. Committed numerous international terrorist attacks during the 1970s and against Israelis after the signing of the Oslo II Accords. Receives most of its financial and military assistance from Syria and Libya.

PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC). Split from the PFLP in 1968, claiming it wanted to focus more on fighting and less on politics. Led by Ahmad Jabril, a former captain in the Syrian Army, who just died. Headquartered in Damascus with bases in Lebanon and cells in Europe, it receives logistic and military support from Syria and financial support from Iran.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB). Group aims to drive the Israeli military and Jewish residents from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem and to establish a Palestinian state via terrorism, including shootings and suicide operations. At least five Americans were killed by the group. The group is more secular than HAMAS which is Islamist.

Army of Islam (AOI). Based in Gaza, it is viewed as even more extreme than HAMAS. It has conducted a number of kidnapping raids into Israel, including that of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.

The following Palestinian terrorist groups were removed from official designation:

Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), it has a more moderate stance than many fellow organizations. For example, it was opposed to attacks against Jews and Israelis outside of Israel and it is not Islamist. While it committed several terrorist attacks in the 1970’s, the deep-Islamist turn of Palestinian society with the rise of HAMAS marginalized the group. It was the group primarily credited for advancing the notion of a “two-state solution” inside of the PLO which made the US drop the FTO designation in 1999.

Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Group carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. Targets included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul and the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in July 1988 in Greece. Suspected of assassinating PLO deputy chief Abu Iyad and PLO security chief Abu Hul in Tunis in January 1991. The group went inactive with the death of Abu Nidal in 2002, and the US removed it as an FTO in 2017 when President Trump tried to prod Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to stop payments to terrorists (it didn’t work).

A day in Gaza City (Photo: AP/Khalil Hamra)

Palestinians have a remarkable number of terrorist groups dedicated to killing Jews and moderate Palestinians. It is equally remarkable that the press refuses to call them out.


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Encourage the 7% and 44% of Palestinians

There are many flowery quotes about peace that are aspirational but difficult to achieve if your counterparty cannot recognize anything decent or moral about you. In the face of ongoing terrorism, an approach of “make peace with those who will make peace, and fight those who want to fight you” is appropriate while inelegant.

There are segments of Palestinians society that neither hate nor want to kill Jews and they should be actively engaged and promoted.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) conducted a global poll about anti-Semitism and found that the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza were by far the most Jew-hating. Approximately 93% of those polled were found to harbor anti-Semitic prejudice.

The Palestinians polled themselves in June 2021 and asked the same question they ask every three months “Are you in favor of armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside of Israel?” Again, the majority of Palestinians, 52% either strongly support or support the idea; 44% opposed attacks.

These two polls are good examples about why the conflict continues: the majority of Palestinian Arabs despise and want to kill Jews.

But an optimist can look at the 7% of Palestinian Arabs who do not harbor anti-Semitic attitudes and the 44% who oppose attacking Jewish civilians and see a hopeful opening. Perhaps this segment of Palestinian society can rise above the systemic Jew-hatred and be partners for peace.

Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist who opposes BDS and actively engages with Jews to find common areas of trust.

While the Palestinian glass is far from half full, those wishing to see peace in the holy land should consider ways of promoting the sliver of Palestinians who recognize and support the dignity and basic human rights of Jews.


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Jews Join Anti-Zionists in Rewriting History

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Jews, Judaism, the holy land, and the country of Israel have always been distinct but connected things. They were inseparable in the Bible but history has torn at those bonds. While the Bible states that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish patriarchs and their descendants, the modern reestablishment of the Jewish State as a secular one with many non-Jews as citizens has pulled Jews in various directions. One needn’t walk far to find a Jew who does not believe in God; who lives in the land of Israel but is not a Zionist; who is a devout believer in Judaism but doesn’t live in the holy land, and various other iterations.

The non-Jewish world has taken note and often enlists Jewish people who break from the historical collective to validate and promote their own biases. Just as anti-Semites like to showcase Jews who also don’t believe in the Old Testament, anti-Zionists parade Jews who despise Israel.

Organizations like the United Nations do much the same.

On November 10, 1975, the United Nations passed a series of anti-Israel initiatives. The most famous one, UN Resolution 3379, known as the “Zionism is Racism” resolution, was ultimately removed due to the efforts of the United States. Unfortunately, UN Resolution 3376 remains, which created the Committee for the Inalienable Rights of Palestinians. That committee granted Palestinian Arabs unique “inalienable rights” compared to every group in the world, granting them the right to “national independence and sovereignty.” The Kurds, Yazidis, Roma, Rohingya Muslims and hundreds of other actual peoples have no such rights according to the UN. Only a group of Arabs whose grandparents lived in the holy land precisely in the 1946-8 timeframe have special rights to independence and sovereignty. Imagine granting the right to national independence and sovereignty to Italian Catholics whose grandparents lived in New York between 1934 and 1936!

That fiction has festered and created alarming alliances.

On July 1, 2021, this committee founded on bogus rights met to discuss “Israel’s Systematic ‘Demographic Engineering’… in “East Jerusalem.” The historic place known as “East Jerusalem” existed for a mere 19 years as an artifice of war and ceased to exist over fifty years ago.

No matter. Lies beget lies and are most comfortable consorting with lies.

The international conference on the “Question of Jerusalem” ran on the theme “Forced demographic change in Jerusalem:  Grave breaches and a threat to peace.” The conclusion to the question was announced at the outset and alarm bells were rung about Arabs supposedly being replaced in Jerusalem by Jews. The fact that the Arab population in Jerusalem skyrocketed by 3.4 times between 1980 and 2019 while the Jewish population in the city only grew by only 1.9 times was never mentioned because fiction acts as fact when operating in the Lie Zone.

In its ongoing attempt to rewrite history based on lies, the conference’s opening remarks were given by Rosemary DiCarlo, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, speaking on behalf of Secretary-General António Guterres. She said “that measures to change Jerusalem’s status and demographic composition are without legal validity and should be firmly rejected by the international community,” advocating for Jews to be purged from the eastern part of the city to recreate the Judenfrei “East Jerusalem” as enacted by the Jordanians in 1949. Not understanding her own biases and actual facts, her comments suggest that the UN position is that Arabs should be evicted from Jerusalem to bring the ratio of Jews back to 74% of the city as existed in 1967, instead of the 61.7% that exists today (today’s level is the lowest since 1946).

Cheikh Niang from Senegal who chaired the phony forum bemoaned Jews moving to Silwan as a major obstacle to peace. I guess no one ever told him that it was Jews from Yemen who founded Silwan 140 years ago, before the Jordanian Arabs routed them from their homes.

Samir Bakr, Assistant Secretary-General of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation for Palestine and Al-Quds Affairs chimed in that “Jerusalem has been an integral part of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967,” failing to acknowledge that eastern Jerusalem was part of Jordanian territory and that all “Palestinians” in Jerusalem were Jordanians from 1954 to 1988 when Jordan pulled its citizenship. There was never “Palestinian territory” until Israel gave the Palestinian Authority territory in 1996.

To ensure a sense of validity at the cockamamie committee, a Jew was brought in to elaborate on the supposed injustice and “threat to peace” her people were committing.

Lara Friedman, the president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FEMP), kicked off an extensive panel discussion about supposed Israeli crimes. FEMP, with “peace” in its name sounds like an unbiased organization devoted to harmony. It is actually an anti-Zionist organization specifically devoted to attacking Israeli policies which funds like-minded organizations.

Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, an anti-Israel organization marketed as a peace-seeking foundation.

Friedman echoed the sentiments of prior speakers that Israel engages in “a systematic policy of demographic engineering with total impunity,” similarly failing to discuss actual population statistics which undermines the entirety of the smear.

She then gave a warped rendition of the history of Jerusalem in 1948 and 1967, skipping the unhelpful points of the Jordanians expelling all of the Jews from eastern Jerusalem and granting Jordanian citizenship to residents “not being Jewish” in the anti-Semitic purge. Obviously she neglected to mention that Jews have been the continuous majority in Jerusalem for over 150 years, since the late 1860’s.

Friedman then added that “Palestinians inside Israel after 1948 were given Israeli citizenship, but Palestinians in East Jerusalem were not, leaving them in the legal limbo of permanent resident status.” This is malarkey as US President Joe Biden would say.

Citizenship for Arabs in eastern Jerusalem

After the 1948-9 Arab-Israel war, Israel took the western part of the city and Jordan took the remainder, including Greater Bethlehem which was also supposed to be an international city according to the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The Arabs in the eastern part of Jerusalem were given Jordanian citizenship by Jordan which illegally annexed the area. Of course Israel did not give “Palestinians in East Jerusalem” Israeli citizenship in 1948-9 as Jordan had seized it.

When Israel reunited Jerusalem in a defensive war after the Jordanians attacked Israel again in 1967, it amended its citizenship law in 1968 to account for the Jordanian Arabs which came under Israeli rule. It immediately gave all of these Jordanians permanent resident status and put in place clauses 4a and 5, to enable these non-Israelis to become Israeli citizens under certain conditions.

A key component was renouncing citizenship of any other country. It was only twenty years later in 1988 that Jordan stripped the Arabs of the West Bank of Jordanian citizenship after finally renouncing claim to the region. Since that time, these former Jordanians/ new stateless “Palestinians” could apply for Israeli citizenship provided they passed a number of other tests such as Hebrew fluency, no criminal record and swearing allegiance to Israel, according to Clause 5. Few applied due to these conditions but the numbers have grown. Clause 4a makes it even easier to become an Israeli and many have applied, hoping to be integrated into a first-world society. Thousands of Arabs living in eastern Jerusalem are now Israeli citizens.


The conference absurdities continued, such as Michael Lynk, United Nations Special Rapporteur, saying that Israeli Jewish settlers in eastern Jerusalem make it impossible for “Palestinians to return East Jerusalem as the capital of their own State,” adding yet a new twist that Palestine is an actual state and it’s not just Palestinian Arabs who want to “return” to Israel, but East Jerusalem itself wants to return as the capital of Palestine, as if that actually ever existed in history.

The false narratives around Israel-Palestine continue to gain mouthpieces at the anti-Israel United Nations, progressive campuses and media, and on social networks. The anti-Zionists are all too willing to accept Jewish anti-Zionists cloaked as lovers of peace as their allies, to buttress the fiction as the new version of history.

Napolean once said “History is a set of lies agreed upon.” Anti-Semites and anti-Zionists are actively and broadly rewriting history with outright lies burning the People of the Book figuratively, as a possible prelude to doing so literally in the shadow of the Holocaust.


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Palestinians Deliberately Aggravate Climate Change

The people of Gaza have been scorching the earth for the past several years.

Over a five month period in 2018, the Israeli government counted 1,364 fires that were deliberately set by Palestinian Arabs putting flammable devices onto balloons and kites. The government report stated that “Over 7,400 acres have been damaged or destroyed, about 23% of the land in the region…. 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.

The United Nations has been vocal about the problems of the increase in temperature which leads to drier land which in turns leads to more fires which destroys animal habitats and plants which would otherwise cool temperatures. But the UN has said nothing about the deliberate scorched earth actions of Palestinian arsonists.

The Carmia Nature Reserve after Palestinian arson

The destructive fires set by Palestinian Arabs continue unabated until today. The Israeli government released a video of firefighters working to extinguish the fires in the Negev on June 15, 2021.

In addition to burning Israeli fields and nature, Palestinians have been poisoning the air, setting tires on fire. Environmental groups have long warned that “fumes that are being released from tire burning have been shown to be extremely toxic to human health and harmful to the environment.

A Palestinian Arab setting tire on fire in “protest” against Israel (photo credit: Issam Rimawi/Flash90)

But again, world governments and environmental groups remain silent on Palestinians’ malicious attacks on our planet.

The United Nations declared that “Climate Change is the defining issue of our time and we are at a defining moment.” Therefore, it is well past time to demand that the UN and concerned citizens of our planet, loudly condemn the ongoing Palestinian environmental terrorism.


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BBC’s Industrial Grade Blood Libel

A young Jewish yeshiva student was shot and killed while waiting at a bus stop in the Israeli territory of Area C, along with several friends who were shot and wounded. BBC News wouldn’t mention his name until a Palestinian Arab teenager was killed in the vicinity weeks later, amid a confrontation with Israeli police.

On June 11, 2021, BBC News published an article called “Palestinian teenager shot dead in clash at protest.” The name of the teenager was featured – three times – as were pictures of a Palestinian ambulance and mourning women. There were no pictures of the Jewish student, Yehuda Geutta, whose name was mentioned only once in the article.

The BBC storyline was that the Palestinian teenager was protesting “against the building of an illegal Jewish settlement near the city of Nablus.” The article would repeat several times that the settlement is “illegal” and is “occupied” by “settlers.” It would never mention that the land is in Area C, Israeli administered land as agreed to by the Palestinian Authority in the Oslo Accords.

So a more complete picture of the story is warranted for people who want an accurate picture and not one told by jaundiced mainstream media.


In early May 2021, several students from a yeshiva in Itamar in Area C were shot at while waiting at an established hitchhiking post at the nearby Tapauch Junction. Yehuda Guetta, 19, was hit in the head and died from his injuries on May 5. A Palestinian man, Muntasser Shalaby, 44, was arrested and charged with the shootings and murder.

Israeli medics and police inspect the scene of shooting attack in Tapuah Junction,
near the city of Ariel in Area C, on May 2, 2021. (Photo by Sraya Diamant/Flash90)

In response to the terrorist attack, several Jews moved to reestablish the outpost of Evyatar not far away. The outpost had been established in 2013 after a similar incident when a Palestinian Arab terrorist stabbed Evyatar Borovsky to death at the same intersection. The outpost was dismantled by Israel as it was built without approvals and permits.

The reestablished outpost quickly grew to around 50 people and Palestinian Arabs came frequently to protest their presence, often setting hundreds of tires on fire as a form of chemical arson to poison the new Jewish residents. One of the Palestinian Arabs participating in the assault saidwe come at night, we light up the mountain, to send them a message that they can’t have even an inch of this land.” During one such protest which included pelting soldiers with stones, a 15 year old Palestinian Arab named Mohammed Hamayel, was killed.

Palestinian Arabs brandishing torches protesting against Israeli Jews moving to Evyatar in Area C,
June 22, 2021 (photo credit: Mohamad Torokman/ Reuters)

The new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett just reached an agreement with the Nahala movement and the Samaria Regional Council that Evyatar would not be razed again, after it concluded that the land was not owned by anyone privately. The agreement stated that the civilians would evacuate the outpost which would be turned into an army post and yeshiva seminary.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian terrorist who killed Guetta, Muntasser Shalaby, is being put on trial. The Israeli courts have approved the demolition of Shalaby’s home, which set off a new round of Palestinian protests. Adding an interesting twist to the general arguments about the demolition of terrorists’ homes, is the fact that Shalaby is separated from his wife in the West Bank and normally resides with his three other wives in Tucson, Arizona. It is unclear whether Shalaby wanted to punish his estranged West Bank wife, knowing that her house would be razed after the Israeli police captured him for the terrorist attack.

None of those facts and background were found in the BBC article.

The BBC deliberately opted to craft a story to make the Israeli army out to be thugs who maliciously shoot young Palestinians for simply protesting illegal Israeli activities, an industrial-grade blood libel. It not only marks the BBC as not a credible source for information but one that incites hatred and violence against Jews and the Jewish State.


Related First One Through articles:

BBC Welcomes Release of British Muslim Accused of Beheading Daniel Pearl

Every Picture Tells a Story: Israel Is Scared of Female Iranian Shoppers

The Nerve of ‘Judaizing’ Neighborhoods

Related First One Through music video:

The 2011 Massacre of the Fogels in Itamar (music by Gorecki)

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Unequal Tallies and Israel’s Soft Force

The Three Little Pigs is a well-known children’s story. It relays how three pigs lived in different houses – of straw, sticks and of bricks. When a big bad wolf blew on the house of the pig living in a straw house, it collapsed quickly. In some versions of the story that pig ran to his friend in the house of sticks and in other versions he was eaten by the wolf.

The wolf then pursued the pigs in the house of sticks. It too came crashing down under the force of the wolf and the pigs ran for shelter in the pig’s house made of bricks. Using the same approach as before, the wolf was unable to blow down the strong house and needed to use greater force and a variety of means to try to destroy the brick house and kill the pigs inside. Ultimately, the wolf tried to climb down the chimney but the pigs had a fire ready for him and he died due to his own maniacal pursuits.

While using an un-kosher / non-halal animal is not ideal, this story is useful in considering the situation of the Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors.

Global Destruction of All Homes

The Jewish people built their foundational home in the land of Israel and have always considered it the center of Judaism, but those homes were destroyed over the millennia. They rebuilt houses of straw, sticks and bricks around the world, almost all of which crumbled under the forces of foes and neighbors including Babylonians, Romans, Muslims, Crusaders, Cossacks and Nazis. As recently as a century ago, there were many Jewish brick houses found in Poland, Germany, Austria, Argentina and Morocco while the Jewish homes in the United States, Palestine and Russia were only built with sticks and straw.

The Holocaust in Europe and the expulsion of Jews of the Arab world destroyed the magnificent brick houses as well as the smaller and more delicate ones. The remaining Jews scattered to rebuild and fortify the remaining houses. Today, the main Jewish brick homes stand in Israel and the United States, where approximately 85% of world Jewry lives.

Jewish Brick Homes in Israel

In Israel, the Jews are surrounded by roughly 7.25% of the global Muslim population. Israeli Jews are outnumbered by 20-to-1 in just their immediate vicinity, even though Israel has the largest number of Jews in the world. That is because Muslims outnumber Jews by over 100-to-1 in total.

Over the past century, Arab Muslim neighbors fought many wars – conventional and otherwise – against the Jews, trying to destroy their presence in their holy land. Jews survived the attacks and hardened their homes to withstand the onslaughts of their neighbors’ tanks, guns, scud missiles, hijackings, rockets and more.

As in “The Three Little Pigs,” the wolves were forced to modify their tactics to achieve their goal.

Palestinian suicide bombers forced Israel to build a separation barrier in the West Bank and convinced Israel to abandon its presence in Gaza. Building upon the successful guerilla warfare, the Palestinian wolves built terror tunnels for abductions, and introduced widespread stabbings, car rammings and incendiary balloons against Israelis.

The schemes did not produce the Muslims’ desired effects so the wolves have adopted two new principle strategies: 1) obtain powerful weapons of mass destruction; and 2) get Israel to soften its defenses so the wolves can penetrate the Jewish homes and drive them from the land.

The nuclear weapons plan of Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007) were foiled by Israel. At present, the Islamic Republic of Iran remains committed to pursuing nuclear weapons while calling for the destruction of Israel.

Regarding softening up Israel, the Palestinians seek to use global pressure – economic, political and military – to make Israel much more vulnerable to its all-out attacks and ultimately achieve the stated aim as clearly articulated in the HAMAS charter: destroy Israel and kill the Jews.

Nothing mobilizes the world against Jews as much as pictures of them killing children to rekindle historic blood libels. So HAMAS puts children in the frontlines of incursions at the Gaza border fence. The terrorist group launches rockets from residential neighborhoods, stores rockets in schools and builds terror tunnels underneath homes. Israel’s retaliatory attacks are designed by Palestinians to kill children who are served in open square caskets on the pages of the anti-Zionist world media.

New York Times large front page color picture showing children killed in latest fighting between HAMAS and Israel.

The noise not only activates anti-Zionist forces and makes Israel rethink how to prosecute wars, it serves as effective cover for Iran and others Islamic regimes to continue to build their ballistic missile and nuclear weapons capabilities.

The Lies of Victim Tally and Proportionate Force

The tally of the victims in battles between HAMAS and Israel will always be lopsided and serves as another effective tool to hurt Israel. The anti-Zionist press readily regurgitates the false narrative that victim tallies equates to proportionality of force. The truth is that HAMAS uses the maximum forces at its disposal while Israel uses only an iota of its capabilities. Gazans deliberately fire at Israeli civilians while Israel attempts to minimize civilian casualties with targeted attacks after warnings.

The gap in victim tallies is the result of a difference of FORCE MINUS DEFENSES, not a disproportionate use of force. Gazans lack bomb shelters for civilians and an air defense system. They fire missiles from densely populated neighborhoods which are intertwined with terrorist infrastructure. To isolate the comparison of force between the parties is to consider Gazans’ all-out evil intent of using its maximal firepower, against the soft power of a superior army. The disproportionate defenses produced the real difference, not the applied force of each party.

If there was no Egyptian and Israeli blockade of Gaza and HAMAS was able to import more advanced weaponry from Iran and Turkey, the death and destruction which Israel would have been forced to unleash on Gaza would have been significantly greater. The blockade likely saved thousands of Arab and Jewish lives.

But pro-Palestinian advocates will argue for lifting the blockade of Gaza, for spending millions to rebuild the Strip complete with bomb shelters, for boycotting Israeli companies, for stripping the Jewish State’s military aid and charging the country and its leaders with war crimes. Each action would increase the duration of the next war and its death toll.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), attacking US support for Israel in Congress on May 13, 2021.

The world’s remaining Jews have only two brick houses, and have learned to recognize the tactics and relentlessness of those desirous of destroying them. Jews cannot be passive as both the wolves and the wolves in sheep’s clothing act to destroy their last homes.


Related First One Through articles:

Pray for a Lack of “Proportionately” in Numbers. There will never be an Equivalence of Intent.

The Disproportionate Defenses of Israel and the Palestinian Authority

The Death of Civilians; the Three Shades of Sorrow

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

While Palestinians Fire 400 Rockets, the United Nations Meets to Give Them Money

The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets

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NY Times Dislikes ‘Judaizing’ Israel

The world has a long history of telling Jews where they can and cannot live. Jews were not only barred from certain professions in the countries in which they lived but were limited in where they could have a home. Russia had its ‘Pale of Settlement’ and Europe had its ghettoes. Today, the United Nations supports Arabs’ wishes for Jews to be barred from living in half of the Jewish holy land.

The absurd whines of ‘Judaizing’ Jerusalem coming from Muslim countries is to be expected. Their wish to delegitimize the ancient history and deep roots of Jews to a city they also consider holy has a selfish motivation. While it doesn’t give them a pass for the anti-Semitism of denying Jews their history and culture, it can at least be rationalized.

But what can possibly be the motivation of The New York Times writing about the ‘Judaization’ of Israel itself?

As the latest May 2021 Gaza war came to a close, the Times ran a piece on May 23rd “Before Rage Flared, A Push To Makes Israeli Mixed Towns More Jewish.” The Times bemoaned how many “right-wing” Jews were leaving the West Bank and settling into mixed Arab-Jewish Israeli towns, making them more Jewish. Somehow the paper which repeatedly criticizes Jews living east of the 1948 Armistice Lines is now even upset when the Jews leave and move west of the ’48 Lines, if they seek to live amongst Arabs.

Jews in the central Israeli city of Lod, near the country’s main airport.
(photo: Dan Balilty/The New York Times)

The Times has been educating its readers that Jews should remain in their ghettoes, even in the United States. It wrote in a sympathetic manner how the Black community in Jersey City and other New Jersey towns felt that Jews were aggressively pushing into their Black communities. For the progressive media, it was not surprising that several Black people shot and killed Jewish residents. As President Obama’s press secretary Josh Earnest said of Jews moving into homes in Jerusalem which they had legally purchased, those Jews have an “agenda [which] provokes tensions.” For progressives, it is the presence of Jews which causes the problem, not the non-Jewish hatred of incoming Jewish neighbors.

Even inside of Israel, the anti-Zionist rag bemoans the presence of Jews which it can only picture as right-wing nationalistic racists, in sharp contrast to Arabs who have a rightful aspiration to a Jew-free country as well as being independent or a majority inside of Israel. The progressive mantra of a two state solution is 1.5 states for Arabs and 0.5 of a state for Jews. And even that, might be too much for those ‘right-wing’ Jews.


Related First One Through articles:

The Nerve of ‘Judaizing’ Neighborhoods

Time to Define Banning Jews From Living Somewhere as Anti-Semitic

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land”

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“I’ll Take Terrorism for Millions of U.S. Dollars, Alex”

President Barack Obama pressured the Palestinian Authority to stop inciting terrorism against Israeli civilians late in his second term. The Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2016 outlined that the State Department should reduce funds to the PA “equivalent to the amount expended by the Palestinian Authority as payments for acts of terrorism by individuals who are imprisoned after being fairly tried and convicted for acts of terrorism and by individuals who died committing acts of terrorism.” That Act was followed by the Taylor Force Act which “condition[ed] assistance to the West Bank and Gaza on steps by the Palestinian Authority to end violence and terrorism against Israeli citizens.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas was unmoved and refused to stop the very popular “Pay-to-Slay” program which rewarded terrorists and their families based on their crimes and how long they served in Israeli jails.

President Trump continued to act upon U.S. principles to withdraw American largess when Abbas said that he celebrated martyrs and was commitment to pay Palestinian terrorist families “even if it costs PA its last penny.” Trump not only pulled donations from the PA but from UNRWA, the United Nations agency which employs 30,000 Palestinians to handle the education, healthcare, housing and small business loans for 6.3 million Palestinian Arabs.

While funding to the Palestinians withered during Trump’s term, so did the wars and terrorist activity. The wars from Gaza which began shortly after Obama was elected (2008-9) continued with wars in 2012 and 2014, followed by the “Stabbing and Car Ramming Intifada” from the West Bank in 2015-6, slowed to a low boil. Overall, 47 Israelis were killed by Arab terrorists during Trump’s term, the lowest tally in any four year span going back decades. This coincided with the fewest Palestinians killed during the four Trump years due to the lack of any large scale attacks.

Enter President Joe Biden in 2021, who made clear his desire to start giving money to Palestinians without insisting on reforms to their laws or activities. Biden’s team began to work with the PA to figure out ways to funnel it funds without tripping U.S. laws. Some ideas floated had the “martyr” families getting “jobs” with the PA for which they needn’t show. Another considered using the Palestinian Postal system to make the prisoner payments as the U.S. laws were directed at banks.

Ha ha. HAMAS leaders know better.

Rather than having a trickle of money pour into Palestinian pockets, they manufactured a “humanitarian crisis.” They launched rockets (which had been gathering dust during the Trump years) from densely populated Gaza neighborhoods into Israeli towns, inviting retaliatory strikes causing tremendous damage to lives and infrastructure. Palestinians then mobilized with follow-up appeals to the global community, complete with pictures of children amid the rubble as they cast themselves as victims to a charged anti-Zionist audience.

The United States reduced funding to the Palestinian Authority because of its refusal to stop INCITING terrorism, but now plans to pour hundreds of millions of dollars because of COMMITING terrorism. Such is the finesse of HAMAS, playing on the stupidity of an administration which refuses to hold terrorists accountable as well as eager to cut checks to anyone who looks like a victim.


Related First One Through articles:

Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians

Liberal Senators Look to Funnel Money into Gaza

Quantifying the Values of Gazans

Looking at Gaza Through Swedish Glasses

The UN Must Pay to Repair the Gaza Fence

The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets

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

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