Category Archives: Palestinians

The Calming Feeling of Palestinian Refugees: Rashida Tlaib in Her Own Words

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Curiously, but not surprisingly, the alt-left has run to the defense of U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over the bizarre comments the Muslim woman of Palestinian decent made about the Palestinian Arabs helping European Jews survive the Holocaust. In order to help shed light on why many Jews were offended by her statements, below is the essence of Tlaib’s comments, but applied to Palestinians, in remarks which perhaps Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) should give:

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
(photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

“There’s a kind of comforting feeling I get when I think about the terrible situation of Palestinian refugees from the event they call the ‘Nakba,’ and the fact that it was my ancestors, Jews in Israel, who gave up half of their homeland, many people their lives, their livelihood and their basic human dignity – their Jewish souls in many ways were wiped out – to make space for these refugees.

I mean, to think that these Jews gave up so much of their homeland as determined by international law in the 1920’s, first giving Arabs the land east of the Jordan River in what became the country of Jordan, and then giving additional Arabs half of the remaining land to be their own. Then, as if that were not enough, my ancestors welcomed over 100,000 Arabs into their own remaining sliver of the Jewish holy land when it became a state in 1948. These Jews gave up the opportunity to have a purely Jewish State – like the pure Arab regions they gave to the Arabs in Jordan as well as in Judea and Samaria and Gaza – and awarded these Israeli Arabs full rights even while Jews were not even allowed to live in the Arab territories in return. The division of the land may have been forced on my ancestors, but they accepted it and I am humbled by the grace they exhibited towards the Arab refugees by giving them so much to realize their dreams.

My Jewish ancestors continued to bestow on the Arabs so many benefits over the following decades. In 1967 they extended their hands in the goal of peace and coexistence in Judea and Samaria (which the Arabs had renamed the “West Bank”) and Gaza, and tried to help build a thriving economy as they had done with Arabs in Israel. In 2005, seeing how the Arab refugees still suffered, Jews handed the local Palestinian Arabs their own complete independence for the very first time in Arab history, by removing every Jew from Gaza without an ask of anything in return.

To this day, Jews continue to work with every Palestinian man, woman and child – both refugee and non-refugee – to have a better life, providing electricity, food and supplies into Gaza and to try to give them a kinder and gentler leadership. In the West Bank, Israel helps ensure the peace by working with the Palestinian Authority, in a region beset by wars that have killed millions in surrounding Muslim countries since 1967, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. Even though these Arabs do not recognize the Jewish State, my Jewish cousins cover them in an umbrella of safety from the wars of the Middle East.

It was both my ancestors and my cousins of today that gave up their homes and dignity for the Palestinian Arabs, even after the deep Jewish longing for a return to their homeland after two thousand years, so that the Arabs would know peace and calm after the trauma of the Nakba.

However, while the Palestinians in Gaza have complete independence they still unfortunately suffer, and I think about whether there could have been a better way. Perhaps removing all of the Jews as the Arabs wanted was a mistake. Perhaps asking the Arabs for nothing in return was a poor decision. If so, the promotion of more coexistence in the West Bank may be a better course to alleviate any remaining Arab suffering.

Perhaps there should be two Jewish States: the one with the boundaries of Israel today and a distinct second one in Judea and Samaria. Maybe Israel and the world will create a fund to expand investment in the economy and Jewish homes and businesses throughout Judea and Samaria so another Start-Up democracy can spring up between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

I am awed by how much the Jews have done for Palestinian Arabs over the past 100 years and how much more they continue to be willing to do together, even at the cost of their own dreams and dignity. While there is much that needs to be done for the Arabs impacted by the Nakba, I am comforted knowing that Israeli Jews made, and continue to make, so many accommodations to help settle the Palestinians peacefully.”

Tlaib may be right: it does make you feel better to complement yourself.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Ultimate Chutzpah: A New Form of Holocaust Denial

Palestinians of Today and the Holocaust

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial

The Holocaust and the Nakba

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

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The Ultimate Chutzpah: A New Form of Holocaust Denial

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A curious thing is unfolding in the world of intersectionality and Muslim antisemitism: the migration from the status of victims to saviors.

For the last several years Palestinians sought to gain global succor for their situation through outrageous lies. The Palestinians sought to revise ancient history with claims that Jesus was a Palestinian Arab and not a Jew, and that the Jewish Temple never stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They also claimed that Palestinians were descendants of Canaanites, all in an attempt to make their historic claims to Israel and Jerusalem as much greater than the Jews. That the Arab invasion of the Jewish holy land happened thousands of years after the Jews had been living there was viewed an inconvenience to be dismissed.

Regarding modern history, the Arabs sought to invert cause-and-effect and claim the mantle of victimhood to appeal to the alt-left contingent in the western world. Jews were labeled as colonialist invaders who ethnically cleansed the indigenous Arabs, rather than a people who returned to their homeland and uniquely sacred land. The Arabs claim ongoing apartheid-like conditions, rather than acknowledge their own overt racism in demanding a state free of Jews, even to the extent of having a law sentencing an Arab to death for selling land to a Jew.

But in May 2019, the outright lies and inversion of facts took a curious turn. Instead of only manufacturing a narrative that Palestinian Arabs are victims of Jewish aggression and racism, a new voice directed the message that Palestinians were the saviors of Jews.

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
(photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

The new Palestinian-American Congresswomen from Michigan, Rashida Tlaib made the following public comment:

“There’s kind of a calming feeling I always tell folks when I think of the Holocaust, and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors, Palestinians, who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence in many ways, h⁷ave been wiped out, and some people’s passports.

“I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time, and I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that, right, in many ways. But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right, and it was forced on them. And so when I think about a one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn’t we do it in a better way?”

It’s not just that she lied about the gross antisemitism that pervaded her “ancestors” who actively lobbied the British government to STOP Jews from coming to Palestine and she ignored the role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who supported the Nazis and Adolph Hitler. We get that: the Palestinians have perfected #FakeHistory like no people on the planet.

But at least people understood WHY the Palestinians lied. They wanted to look like victims to get support from the world. They sought to appear as indigenous so their claims should be validated. Complete lies, but understandable.

But Tlaib went in a new direction. She created a whole new lie for the purpose of trying to make Jews appreciate what Palestinians did for Jews! Palestinians gave up their homes, livelihood and dignity for you Jews, so be thankful! It gives Tlaib “comfort” that her ancestors “saved” Jews from the Holocaust, and you Jews should look at Palestinians as your benefactors.

Outrageous.

Let me make this clear: Tlaib, you can continue to manufacture lies to make yourself comfortable all you want. Your orientation of talking “Truth to Power” works only in Pathological Liarland. That’s your business and we all understand your sickness to make yourself feel better.

But to now go beyond inverting cause-and-effect and aggressor-and-victim, and to state that Palestinian Arabs were the saviors of European Jews is a whole new form of Holocaust denial. It is beyond chutzpah and beyond disgraceful.

It is vile and inexcusable. And to continue to stand behind such sentiments does not simply make the statement vile. It makes you evil.

Related First.One.through articles:

Palestinians of Today and the Holocaust

Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial

The Holocaust and the Nakba

Examining Ilhan Omar’s Point About Muslim Antisemitism

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Quantifying the Values of Gazans

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People typically use the term “values” to describe things that are important to them and what drives their behavior, in an expression like “core values.” It is strange to use the word “value” for something that is almost impossibe to quantify. How do you put a number on freedom? Time with family? What about honesty, transparency or kindness?

What is important to people may be better explained by quantifying how they spend their finite resources like time, money or space. Core values can be extrapolated by examining what people say is important to them (say time with family) and then quantifying how they utilize such time (comparing time spent with family to time in the gym or watching TV).

Consider the 600 rockets fired by the Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza into the civilian areas of Israel over the weekend of May 5, 2019 and want can be learned.

More rockets than bullets. The roughly 600 rockets launched from Gaza is more than the total rounds of bullets used to shoot Muslim worshipers in a New Zealand mosque, the Jewish congregants in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and at the Jewish worshipers at a Chabad House in Poway, California.

Bullets are cheap relative to rockets. Bullets are purchased by the caseload. They are one of the cheapest armaments used to kill people. While the media often portrays the “protesters” in Gaza as throwing rocks because of their “impoverished” and “desperate” situation, the people of Gaza obviously prioritized much more lethal and sophisticated weaponry.

Rockets take up much more space than bullets. Thousands of bullets can be stored on a bookshelf. Not so rockets. Each rocket takes the physical space of 1,000 bullets. Many warehouses must have been used to store the hundreds of rockets. So while the news describes the cramped quarters of the “coastal enclave” of Gaza, the militants have to qualms in using the finite space to store large weapons of destruction.

Elected terrorist army versus lone gunmen. There were a few racist murderers that burst into the mosque and synagogues in New Zealand and the U.S.A. They were fanatical “lone gunmen” who operated without support. However, the terrorists of Gaza number thousands of people who build, buy, transport, store and launch rockets. The terrorist group Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people to 58% of parliament. This is not a lone lunatic, but the mainstream desire of Palestinians.

Nearly a million targets versus a thousand people. The Muslim and Jewish houses of worship which were attacked held around a thousand people in total. But nearly a million people live within 25 miles of Gaza including the city of Ashdod with 225,000 people, Be’er Sheva with 186,000 and Ashkelon with over 100,000. These men, women and children in Israel were bombarded by the Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Antisemitic charter and mission compared to momentary lapse of reason / consumption of hatred. The racist killers in the New Zealand and American houses of worship were definitely consumed with hatred for Jews and Muslims well before they took violent action, but it is unclear what made these individuals act at that particular moment in time. Perhaps the hatred was “triggered” by a news item or something read online. Maybe it was an accumulation of things. It is possible that it was simply a moment of rage which might have passed without actually harming anyone. But not so for the Palestinian Arabs firing into Israel. Their charters calling for the death of Jews and destruction of Israel took months to write. The wars they fought against Israel have been going on for years. The 600 rockets fired into Israeli cities and towns went on all weekend. There was no momentary “snap” for the terrorists of Gaza.

We are told that Gaza is impoverished and cramped and that Gazans just want jobs, yet the Palestinian Arabs spend their finite resources on thousands of rockets. We are led to believe that there are just a few radical “militants” in Gaza, instead of acknowledging that there is an established military. We are told that the people of Gaza just want peace, even though they elected and continue to support the antisemitic jihadists of Hamas.

The Palestinian Arabs in Gaza demonstrate over and again that one of their core values is the destruction of the Jewish State.

If the madmen who killed worshipers in New Zealand, Pittsburgh and California had an army it would look like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. If they ruled a country, it would look like Gaza.

The “humanitarian crisis” of Gaza is not in the lack of jobs, food and infrastructure; it is that the people of Gaza continue to deny the humanity and rights of the Jewish people and Jewish State.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Shrapnel of Intent

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

Looking at Gaza Through Swedish Glasses

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

The Palestinian State I Oppose

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Netanyahu Props Up Failed Arab Leaders

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To read New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is to live in another universe. While he once had some basic understanding of the Middle East, that seems to be a long time ago.

Friedman’s view – and that of almost every journalist for The Times – is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a right wing lunatic, while his counterparts around the Arab world including acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II are simply weak and incompetent. The left wing media will have you believe that the Arab people are peace-loving people who are frustrated with their economy, while Israeli public are racists. The media tells this narrative over-and-again in various ways.

But the reality is much more shocking for both pro-Zionists and pro-Arabs and those who seek an enduring peace in the region.

The Arab leaders are indeed very weak. They hold onto whatever power they have by criticizing Jews and Israel to gain public support. The Arab masses are broadly antisemitic and celebrate any insult and setback of the Jews and their leaders are happy to supply the red meat.

Netanyahu knows all of this. He therefore allows his Arab counterparts to rant and rave while saying and doing nothing, to keep a lid on the Arab masses and stability in leadership. He knows that if the Arab leaders appear to be on overly positive terms with the Jewish State, the Arab street will turn on their leaders and remove them from power.

So when the Jordanian king claims rights over the Christian sites in Jerusalem even though he has none, Netanyahu stays silent. In 2010, when Jordan denounced the rebuilding and reopening of the Hurva Synagogue which it had destroyed in 1949, Netanyahu decided to skip the re-dedication. When Abdullah cries that the biggest crisis in the Middle East is the lack of a Palestinian State while millions of Syrians, Iraqis and Yemenites are slaughtered by fellow Arabs, Netanyahu lets the venting at him proceed without comment.

The theater is because Abdullah needs Netanyahu to prop up his veneer of strength, and noting does that better than castigating the “little Satan” on the world stage for everyone to see and hear. For his part, Netanyahu needs to keep the Arab masses from tearing the Jewish State apart and to keep Jordan as a stable buffer from the crazy Islamic radicals at home and beyond.

The dynamic is not different regarding the two major Palestinian political parties, the terrorist group Hamas and the politely antisemitic Fatah.

Hamas has a stated goal of seeking the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews. Yet Netanyahu has not assassinated the entirety of its leadership even though he could do so easily. Instead, he allows hundreds of millions of dollars to flow through into Gaza from Qatar to give Hamas a little breathing room with its populace. By controlling the spigot of cash, Netanyahu exerts additional leverage over Hamas.

In exchange, Hamas keeps the rocket attacks to a minimum over the Israeli election season. Fatah occasionally keeps its incitement in check and coordinates security with the Israeli police. Netanyahu goes on to victory and the Palestinian parties get some ammo to trade with Netanyahu down the road.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife
celebrating his 2019 election victory

Right wing Zionists would be upset to learn that Netanyahu is softer than he appears and right wing Arabs would be appalled how their leaders actively consort with their enemy even as the Arab leadership gives public lip service to the masses. For its inept part, the media cannot cover the political machinations anywhere close to as well as they write about every nuance of The Game of Thrones. Their liberal goal is to undermine American support for Israel, not to tell the news.

The leader of the Jewish State has learned how to survive in the turbulent Middle East, playing politics to its fullest both inside and outside of Israel. He leaves behind a media scratching their heads only able to call out “victor” as fact and “right-wing radical” as uninformed biased opinion.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Is Israel Reforming the Muslim Middle East? Impossible According to The NY Times

The Time Factor in the Israeli-Arab Conflict

Israel & the United States Repel the Force of the World

The New York Times Knows It’s Israeli Right from It’s Palestinian Moderates

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The Debate About Two States is Between Arabs Themselves and Jews Themselves

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The common refrain surrounding the Arab-Israeli Conflict is that the Israelis and Arabs need to find a compromise solution that will work for both parties. People on the left believe that Israel, as the entity which is much stronger than the Palestinian Authority, must make the majority of that compromise. For those on the right, Israel is the smaller party that has always been under attack by the surrounding Arab and Muslim world, and therefore will demand that Arabs must make significant concessions.

This viewpoint is valid in concept, but lacks any nuance to capture the situation as it exists today. In reality, it is the Palestinian Arabs themselves and the Israelis themselves who are torn on the path towards an enduring peace. Until each party can arrive at a consensus internally, the only bridge with consensus regarding a two state solution is found between the Palestinian Authority leadership and far left progressive Jews; a failed partnership, as the PA is despised by the Arab masses and fellow Jews in Israel and the diaspora consider the progressives a dangerous fringe group, as discussed below.

The Arabs

The Palestinian Arabs have three distinct viewpoints regarding the conflict, and a fourth approach among Israelis Arabs who share some commonality with Jews.

  1. Hamas. Hamas has no interest in a two-state solution as they believe that Israel has no right to exist. While it may make some short-term accommodations related to a cease-fire or an interim acceptance for a two-state solution, the concept of an enduring peace between two countries is abhorrent to Hamas and all of its supporters.
  2. The Palestinian Authority. The PA is a corrupt and inept kleptocracy which seeks a two-state solution to empower and enrich themselves. It has stated it will make the great “compromise” of not demanding the entirety of Israel as part of its state and “very reasonably” demand that its country be stripped of any Jews while refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish State. From such perch, the PA flies around the world with honor, pomp and circumstance while fattening their bellies as foreign nations pour money into the wallets of its leadership.
  3. The Palestinians. The Palestinian Arabs have no interest in a two-state solution according to their own polls, even if they get everything which the PA demands. They are fed up with everybody – the PA, Hamas, the Israelis and the Arab world which has forgotten about them. They view any and every deal with deep distrust.

This is not very promising. The only Palestinians who want the two-state solution today is a leadership which has no legitimacy as it is ten years past its stated term limit, and the majority of Palestinians want the acting leadership to resign.

A softer position in the Arab world which is closer to the Jewish positions on two states is held by Israeli Arabs.

Israeli Arabs. The Israeli Arabs are eager for a two state solution which looks very different than what the PA has proposed. They want NO RETURN of any Palestinian refugees into Israel. They want Israel to be recognized as the nation state of the Jewish people. They demand institutions that are transparent and devoid of any fraud – all desires which the PA will not accept.


Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem
(photo: First.One.Through)

The wide range of opinions regarding a two state-solution is not limited to Arabs, as Jews also have their own spectrum of ideas.

The Jews

  1. The Far Right. Israel has a number of political parties including Yisrael Beiteinu, United Right (each with 5 seats in the new Knesset), Zehut and the New Right (which got zero seats in the 2019 election) who support annexing Judea and Samaria/ the area east of the Green Line (EGL) commonly called the “West Bank.” The extent of Palestinian “sovereignty” would be limited to Gaza which will be denied any standing army, and essential be an entity with autonomy but will likely need to be a territory of either Egypt, Jordan or Qatar. Israel would likely never permit it to be aligned with Turkey.
  2. The Right. Is represented by the majority Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is in favor of annexing blocs of the West Bank such as the Gush Etzion area and Maale Adumim, but would give the Palestinian Authority large sections of the West Bank where the majority of Palestinian Arabs live including Areas A and B and parts of Area C. There would be no admittance of any Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). Good news is that the Israelis just held elections so there is clarity that this is the majority consensus view.
  3. The Left.The left is represented by the Blue and White party which came in second in the Israel elections. They would allow as many as 100,000 SAPs into Israel as part of a peace deal and give virtually the entirety of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem to the PA. A bit further to the left in Israel are the Labor and Meretz parties in Israel (6 and 4 seats, respectively) and in the diaspora in groups like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum who oppose the notion of Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish people.
  4. The Far Left. Believes that Israel should cease to exist as a Jewish State. They advocate for folding all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into a bi-national state with no special rights or privileges for Jews. Essentially the Hamas platform, without the murder of Jews, but with all of the demonization. There is virtually no one in Israel with such views, but is in vocal extremist diaspora organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, the New Israel Fund and Code Pink.

Lining up the groups against each other reveals interesting bedfellows between Arabs and Jews:

  • Hamas <> JVP/ Code Pink
  • the PA <> Labor/ J Street
  • Israeli Arabs <> Likud/ Republican Jewish Coalition
  • some Israeli Arabs <> Yisrael Beiteinu/ the New Right
  • The Palestinians <> everyone who has given up hope for any solution

Hamas, JVP, Code Pink, Students for Justice in Palestine and similar groups have tried to gain legitimacy in the public sphere. Former US President Jimmy Carter blessed Hamas despite its vile antisemitic charter and the United Nations has sought to fold it into the Palestinian Authority. Groups like SJP are getting awards on college campuses like New York University. These are hate groups and should be condemned and boycotted by everyone who wants to see an enduring peace in the Middle East. They will never be accepted by any Israeli administration forging a peace settlement, and will only make Israelis move further rightward.

J Street and progressives around the world have been reaching out to the PA as the best chance for peace. However, the PA is despised and disrespected by Palestinians. Until there are legitimate Palestinian elections, reaching out to the PA is a fool’s errand. Most Jews and conservatives see through the chimera and think J Street’s moves to weaken Israel and go against the Israeli government by advancing condemnations at the United Nations and promoting a deeply flawed Iranian nuclear deal are dangerous and divisive. The liberal media mostly follows this narrative and will promote the PA as “moderate” which is counter-factual and J Street as “mainstream” which is liberal wishful thinking. However, if they can tack towards the center instead of continuing to lurch leftward, perhaps they can be part of forging an enduring solution instead of today’s alt-left miasma.

For their part, Israeli Arabs and Likud consider the past decade a tremendous success. While the neighboring region had wars killing nearly a million people in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries; with millions of war refugees scattered around the world; military coups taking over Egypt and almost Turkey; and heads of state chopped off in Libya, Israel was relatively calm. When the financial markets took the western world into an abyss, Israel emerged unscathed and its economy boomed. Riding the status quo has worked, and selectively extending that secret sauce with more global partnerships and annexing blocs of the West Bank are logical next steps.

However, the masses are unhappy. The lack of self-determination for the SAPs is not in anyone’s interest and everyone should want to see a resolution to their status. But with no consensus between the Arabs themselves and Israelis themselves, there is little hope for an enduring peace anytime soon.

It may therefore be time for some Israeli Arabs to assume a leadership role in the negotiations to help both the Arabs and Jews each reach a centrist consensus among themselves, and then ultimately with each other.


Israeli Arab women entering the Western Wall Plaza
(Photo: FirstOneThrough)

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings

“Peace” According to Palestinian “Moderates”

The Only Precondition for MidEast Peace Talks

The Time Factor in the Israeli-Arab Conflict

The Hebron Narratives: Is it the Presence of Jews or the Israeli Military

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Israeli Arabs SUPPORT Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People

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On a good day, the mainstream media will spin narratives of alternative facts. On bad days, they will completely lie to their readership, either deliberately or through indifference to doing research which might reveal facts counter to their preferred narratives.

A favorite repeated lie for the New York Times is that Israel’s Nation State Law was anti-Arab, racist and loudly condemned by Israel Arabs (or as the Times prefers to call them, “Palestinian citizens of Israel.”). It simply is not true.

At the same time that Israel was debating and passing the new Basic Law on July 18, 2018, detailed polling was going on among Palestinians, Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs on a wide range of issues. The splits between the various groups on different topics were interesting, but perhaps nothing was more revealing than the questions which garnered almost unanimous approvals.

The Palestinians and the Israeli Jews were divided among themselves on every issue. However, the Israeli Arabs showed overwhelming consensus on four questions:

  1. Support for the recognition that Israel is the home for Jewish people and Palestine is the home for Arab people received 84.8% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 42.9% and 61.9%, respectively).
  2. Palestinian refugees will return to Palestine and a cap of 100,000 refugees will move to Israel as part of family reunification. The balance of refugees will receive compensation, got 84.1% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 47.5% and 21.3%, respectively).
  3. The future Palestinian state and the state of Israel will both have a democratic
    political system based on rule of law, periodic elections, free press, strong parliament, independent judiciary and equal rights for religious and ethnic minorities as well as strong anti-corruption measures received 91.2% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 48.2% and 61.7%, respectively).
  4. The Israeli-Palestinian agreement will be part of a larger peace agreement
    with all Arab states according to the Arab Peace Initiative received 84.5% approval (compared to Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews who only favored it by 45.8% and 50.8%, respectively).

Israeli Arabs – more than Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs – want distinct Jewish and Arab states and want to be a protected minority in the Jewish State. They DO NOT want to see millions of refugees descend and transform Israel into a bi-national state. They want those refugees to go to a new Palestinian Arab state while they remain citizens of the nation state of the Jewish people.

That is what the Israeli Arabs say. Would you rather believe them or a media industry intent on telling you that Israel is a racist apartheid state?

Related First.One.Through articles:

What the Palestinians Were Thinking While Israelis Were Voting

An Inconvenient Truth: Palestinian Polls

The Real “Symbol of the Conflict” is Neta Sorek

Names and Narrative: “Palestinians” versus Palestinian Arabs / Israeli Arabs

The Basic Law’s “Unique” Problem

Deciphering the 2018 Basic Law in Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People

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Israeli Arabs in the Galilee
(photo: FirstOneThrough)

What the Palestinians Were Thinking While Israelis Were Voting

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While the Israelis went to the polls again to elect their government in a democratic process, the Palestinian Arabs could only watch with envy. They have not held an election since 2006, when they elected the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of Parliament. They last got to vote for a president in 2005 for what was supposed to be a four-year term. Mahmoud Abbas has opted to not hold elections for 10-plus years passed his expiry date and counting.

Political pundits will comment about what the new Israeli government will mean for the peace process, as if the tango just involved a single party. In fairness, the ineptitude and corruption of Palestinian Authority which cannot even broker a peace between the rival Fatah and Hamas parties make them easy to ignore as a counter-party for Israel. But if one wants to actually be able to achieve an enduring peace, it is important to understand what Palestinian Arabs think about their situation and the Jewish State next door.

The latest Palestinian poll results were released on April 9, 2019, on the same day as the Israeli elections, and reflect polling done March 13-16. Here is snapshot of some of the findings:

  • 60% of Palestinians want acting-President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, with 62% being dissatisfied with his job performance
  • Only 54% of Palestinians believe that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, a low-water mark
  • More Palestinians blame their own leaders for the conditions in Gaza than Israel
  • 50% of Palestinians oppose the two-state solution; more people in Gaza support two states than people in the West Bank
  • Even if the Peace Plan contained everything that Abbas currently claims to desire (East Jerusalem capital, 1967 borders, return of refugees) only 43% of Palestinians would vote in favor of it and 52% would reject it
  • 47% support a return to armed intifada
  • 71% want an armed battalion to exist outside of the control of the Palestinian Authority
  • 64% oppose the Palestinian Authority engaging with the Trump Administration
  • 60% fear for their safety if their criticize the Palestinian leadership
  • 95% of Palestinians consider themselves religious

Based on these results, there is no pathway towards an enduring peace anytime in the near-future regardless of who leads the State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs have no faith in their own leadership and no interest in accepting the most generous two-state solution (which Israel wouldn’t offer anyway).

It is therefore ridiculous to look at the Israeli elections through the prism of a peace process. Instead, the orientation should be about shrinking the conflict with the Stateless Arabs (SAPs); dealing with Iran and Hezbollah; establishing more diplomatic and trading partners around the world; continuing to build the economy; developing a comprehensive housing strategy; and bringing the devout communities (Haredi and Arabs) into the workforce and out of poverty.

We wish the new Israeli government best of luck in tackling these issues.


The Menorah outside of the Knesset
(photo: FirstOneThrough)

Related First.One.Through article:

In Israel, the Winner is… Democracy

Welcoming the Unpopular Non-President (Abbas) of a Non-Country (Palestine)

Related video:

The Changed Israel Knesset (music by David Bowie)

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The United Nations Bias Between Jews and Palestinians Regarding Property Rights

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On December 10, 1948, the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In it, the global body sought to ensure that all people had basic human rights as laid out in the preamble:

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,”

Such rights afforded to all people included the right to own property as enumerated in Article 17:

“(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”

With such understanding, it is worth delving into the rights of Jews and Arabs to own property in the holy land.

Jews Owning Property in the Holy Land

Even before the UDHR was codified, international law encouraged Jews to live and settle throughout Palestine, which at the time included areas which today are commonly called, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. The Mandate of Palestine of 1922 stated clearly the mission to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home,” and encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” Further, the law laid out that “[n]o discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.”

International law stated that everyone – Jew, Arab and all others – could live throughout the land, but it was specifically Jews who were encouraged to settle the land and establish a national home throughout the entirety of the Palestine Mandate. Article 25 of the Mandate did allow the British to separate off the area east of the Jordan River (now known as Jordan), but it still forbade such entity from banning people from living and owning property because of their religion.

But that’s precisely what happened.

On September 23, 1922, the British separated that area into “Transjordan” and soon recognized a new government there. That government believed that Jews had no rights to own land. When Jordan invaded Israel in 1948 and took over the area now known as the “West Bank” and eastern Jerusalem, it evicted every Jew. When Jordan passed a nationality law in 1954, it specifically forbade the Jews from eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank from getting citizenship. The Jordanians also passed a law that made it a capital offense for any Arab to sell land to a Jew. The Palestinian Authority has proudly inherited and maintained that policy today.

And the world seemed to endorse this Jew-free formula.

Even beyond the dozens of Muslim states which refused to recognize the basic existence of Israel, in 2014, former US President Barack Obama chastised Jews for legally buying homes in the predominantly Arab section of eastern Jerusalem stating that the “US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” The inherent dignity of Jews to own property was viewed as secondary to the demands of the antisemitic Arab neighbors.

For Muslims nations, progressives and much of the world, the inalienable human right to own property did not cover Jews, and in their homeland, no less.

Arabs With Rights to Ancestors’ Homes

In stark contrast to Jews who uniquely have been determined as not worthy of basic human rights and dignity, the United Nations extended the property rights for Palestinian Arabs that do not exist for any other group of people.

On November 22, 1974 the UN General Assembly passed A/RES/3236 (XXIX) which granted Palestinian Arabs the rights to not just own property but the “inalienable right” to go actually “return” to homes and property where ancestors lived generations ago.

“2. Reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return;”

The concept was and remains without precedent. Do Americans have the right to return to homes in other continents where great grandparents lived 100 years ago? Even more outrageous, most of the local Arabs in Palestine did not own the house or land; it was mostly owned by wealthy people from other areas including Turkey and Syria. That is why the UNRWA definition of a “refugee” simply states that it is for “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine,” not that they OWNED any property. Even more, the Palestinian “refugees” which concern the UN simply lived in Palestine between 1946 and 1948, with most having moved to the area from neighboring Arab lands in the preceding years.

Not surprisingly, the UN branded “Zionism is a form of racism,” and “a threat to world peace” just a year later as it pushed resolutions to eliminate Jewish rights and dignity while advancing those of the Arabs in their midst.

Jews have been uniquely stripped of their “inalienable rights” to purchase and own homes in the Jewish homeland, while Palestinian Arabs have been uniquely granted “inalienable rights” to move to houses and villages which no longer exist in a foreign country because ancestors once lived and worked there, even if they were just renting for a couple of years.

With the absurdity of such biased declarations, why should Israel pay any heed to the rantings of the rabidly antisemitic and biased body?

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Original Nakba: The Division of “TransJordan”

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

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

No Jews Allowed in Palestine

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Compensation Fund for Palestinian Arabs’ and MENA Jews’ Lost Property

The United Nations Oxymoronic Care for Israel

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

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Homes in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem,
a city which has been majority Jewish since the 1860’s

 

Correcting Menendez: Israel MUST Fight the Palestinians

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Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) took the floor at the closing of AIPAC’s 2019 conference on March 26, 2019. While he spoke forcefully for the US-Israel alliance and the need to fight antisemitism in all of its manifestations from the right and the left, he softened his tone when it came to Palestinian Arabs. At 4:20 of his remarks, he said the following about Israel responding to rocket attacks from Gaza:

“Israel has every right to defend herself, to hold her perpetrators accountable, and to defend the safety and security of her people.”

Israel does not defend itself as a right, but an OBLIGATION. A government is meaningless if its primary purpose is not to actively and forcefully defend its citizens and borders from attacks. Menendez calling the response of Israel a “right” softens the role of the Israeli government. The government has a “right” to engage in trade policy with another country. It has a “right” to decide who to let into the country. But defense is not a “right” which may or may not be acted upon; defense is an obligation – and the primary one – for every government in the world.

Menendez similarly made another comment softening the lines in the Arab-Israeli Conflict. At 5:20, Menendez said the following:

“Hamas has hoodwinked the people of Gaza who remain oppressed by terrible economic hardship and increasing political crackdowns.”

Why did Menendez strip the Gazans of responsibility for their situation and paint them as suffering victims? Hamas isn’t simply a terrorist group like ISIS – it’s an official political party of the Palestinians, no different than the Republican and Democratic parties. The Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to 58% of the parliament, a whopping majority, even though the Hamas Charter is the most vile antisemitic charter on the planet, calling for the death of Jews and destruction of Israel. Further, if presidential elections were held, Hamas would have beaten Fatah in every single poll, except for the most recent one in March 2019, and the only reasons for Hamas’s drop in the polls was Palestinians loving Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas’s refusal to soften his stance on paying the families of terrorists who murder Israelis, and Arab anger over Hamas’s crackdown on protests. But make no mistake: between one-third and one-half of all Palestinians still want an “armed struggle” against Israel.

Israel is not in an optional battle against a rogue terrorist entity; it is in an ongoing war against a people at its borders who want to destroy it. If a proud defender of Israel like Bob Menendez cannot articulate that clearly, how can we expect more from the ill-informed members of Congress?

Related First.One.Through articles:

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

It’s the Democracy, Stupid

Cause and Effect: Making Gaza

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

The Highbrow Anti-Semite

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

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The United Nations Oxymoronic Care for Israel

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The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, gave the UN Security Council a briefing on February 20, 2019. It included the following two sentences to conclude his introductory remarks:

“An international community that understands that the weaker party – the Palestinian people who have lived under occupation for more than fifty years – need our support more than ever.

“It should never be about Israel or Palestine, it should be about Israel and Palestine.“

The concluding comment is one that seemingly people on all sides of the conflict could support – establishing a framework that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian; a scenario in which all of the parties are supported.


Nickolay Mladenov

But the immediately preceding comment makes clear that the aim of the UN is NOT to support both parties, but only “the weaker party – the Palestinian people.”

This sentiment rallies the alt-left, that the weaker party is always the one to be embraced, regardless of whether it is moral or ethical. Progressives therefore embrace such toxic notions that the Palestinian Authority is right to pay the families of Arab murderers of Israeli Jews, because the families of those murderers are poor and stateless. The evil is rationalized, normalized.

For the alt-left, it is an appalling blessing of murder. For the United Nations, it continues a long history of virulent anti-Zionist behavior.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel.

The Liberals in Canada are Following Obama in Turning on Israel

The UN Never Demands Justice for Palestinian Killers

The United Nations Once Again “Encourages” Hamas

The Hollowness of the United Nations’ “All”

The United Nations’ Select Concern for Arson in the Middle East

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