Category Archives: Palestinians

The United Nations Must Take Its Own Medicine Re the Palestinian Authority

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On July 10, 2019, the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres delivered a speech regarding the horrible situation of terrorism in Africa which outlined a multi-step approach to tackling the growing problem.

Should he truly believe that those are the best methods for combating terrorism globally, he must begin to implement them in the region where the U.N. has tens of thousands of employees working for decades in an area where terrorism reigns under its blind eyes: among the Palestinian Arabs in the Arab-Israel Conflict.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres talks about fighting terrorism in Africa, July 2019
(photo: UNEP, Duncan Moore)

Below are Guterres’s main points on combating terrorism, and the situation in Gaza, West Bank and other areas where the United Nations cares for Palestinian Arabs:

  1. Working Together and Information Sharing. Guterres said that the global community should be “working together to share counter-terrorism information.” He noted that terrorism in Africa, such as the Kenya-Ethiopian border, could be best fought by sharing “information, expertise and good practices.”The U.N. agency for Palestinian Arab “refugees,” UNRWA has nearly 32,000 employees in Gaza, the “West Bank,” Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (a figure which grows even faster than the number of registered persons). Yet the UN limits its activities to education and healthcare, and does not provide any information to Israel about terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah or other known terrorist groups in the effort “to detect, identify and disrupt violent extremism and to bring terrorist to justice.” Regrettably, over the past several decades, the U.N. has never acted to stop terrorism – even with basic information sharing which Guterres called for in Africa. The UN has actually done the opposite, leaving its schools open to store weapons and as launching sites for missiles against Israel.
  2. Halting the Narrative of Grievance and Promoting Good Governance and Good Jobs. Guterres outlined some of the underlying causes which allow terrorism to thrive, saying that it is important to stop the  “narratives of grievance, actual or perceived injustice, and promised empowerment” as well as changing the dynamics “wherever human rights are being violated, good governance is being ignored and aspirations are being crushed.”Yet the U.N. has actively promoted the narrative of “grievance and injustice” in telling the Palestinians that they have a right to move to a house where a grandparent once lived, regardless as to whether they had actually owned any property and for how long. As such, the U.N. has fueled the Gaza riots for the past years with the promise that through the United Nations, the Arabs will get to move into Israel.Regarding “good governance,” the U.N. operates in Gaza in concert with Hamas, just as it operates in Syria with mass murder Bashar al-Assad and coordinates in Lebanon with operatives of Hezbollah. Rather than make any attempt at fostering human rights and good governance, UNRWA turns a blind eye as it hands out jobs and benefits to the stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs).Further, rather than heed Guterres’ comments regarding terrorism in Africa of “strengthening State institutions and civil society, building durable peace and promoting sustainable development to tackle the poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity that feed despair,” the U.N. has been active in promoting the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel movement, pulling good jobs out of the West Bank. It has similarly made light of the Trump administrations efforts to invest billions of dollars into the Palestinian economy, thereby helping fuel poverty and lack of opportunities.
  3. Engaging Women in the Fight Against Terrorism. Guterres sees a particular role for women to play in fighting hatred and violence, saying “We must fully engage women, who play multiple roles in relation to violent extremism and its prevention — as victims, as those recruited and radicalized, but most importantly as influencers and leaders in prevention and agents of peace.”But the U.N. has stood by while women are championed as murderers, not as “agents of peace.” All one has to do is look at schools and squares named after female terrorists. The U.N. stands by while official Palestinian Authority TV broadcasts mothers who say they are proud of their terrorist children. It is not as though the U.N. offers no opinions; it complains bitterly when the U.S. and Israel try to stop the pay-to-slay program which encourages terrorism.And as a simple matter of decency which must start on the local level, how has the U.N. said or done nothing while Gaza leads the world in honor killings of women on a per capita basis? Instead the U.N. produces long papers describing the plight of Palestinian women are solely because of Israel.The U.N. hasn’t enlisted Palestinian women to combat terror; it has promoted them to be part of the terror. It is well past time for this to change.
  4. Stop the Online Provocations and Hate Speech and Promote Jobs. It many ways, this point is similar to halting the narrative of grievance Guterres mentioned above. He said “youth unemployment not only limits personal fulfilment and drains away hope, it also undermines social cohesion and could threaten security.” Further, “With the rise of misinformation on social media and the Internet, young people also need education and empowerment to denounce manipulative narratives, xenophobia and hate speech, which can all lead to online radicalization.”As described above, the U.N. has effectively worked in concert with the BDS movement to kill good jobs for Palestinians in the West Bank fueling unemployment. It also makes little or no effort to stop or condemn the incitement on Palestinian TV and Facebook pages. In fact, it does the opposite, as many UNRWA officials use Facebook to post calls for terrorism against “Zionist dogs”.In regards to the swelling ranks of young people, the United Nations has actively been involved with “creating” the youth, by not advancing the U.N.’s own stated goals of birth control, even though UNRWA touches 99.4% of all Arab women. The U.N. gives Palestinians first world medical treatment while they have children at the rate of third world countries, which has inflated the Palestinian Arab refugee population by 1 million people – under the care of the United Nations.
  5. The Victims of Terrorism as Advocates for Peace. Guterres continued that the UN must “support the victims and survivors of terrorism, including victims of sexual violence and children exploited by terrorist groups,” who must be central to the fight against terror.So the United Nations builds a portal on the victims of terrorism. It writes about victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia and Syria, places of horrible terrorist attacks (each almost 100% Muslim, except for Nigeria which is about 50/50 Christian/Muslim). Israel doesn’t get a mention.
  6. Stopping the Flow of Money to Terrorists. Guterres said “mitigating the threat of foreign terrorist fighters, empowering and engaging youth, countering terrorist financing and improving aviation security” are critical in the efforts to combat terrorism.An interesting read on the subject of halting the flow of money to terrorist is “Harpoon” by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner. Israel actively is involved in the fight to stop the flow of funds to terrorists, but it is done despite the United Nations. The circus of the UN has countries including Kuwait and Indonesia (both almost completely Muslim) condemning Israel for withholding monies which the Palestinian Authority pays to terrorists’ families.

If the UN Secretary-General really believes in his formula for stopping terrorism, and desires peace in the Middle East, he should begin using his 32,000-person force on the ground servicing Palestinian “refugees” and the global forum to follow his principles including: sharing information on Palestinian terrorist groups with Israel; stopping the narrative that descendants of people who once live in Israel have any ‘right of return’; not facilitating or participating in any manner with the BDS movement; refusing to provide any services in Gaza as long as Hamas is in power and there are schools named after terrorists; having Israeli victims of terror address the United Nations; and backing Israel in suspending payments to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues its pay-to-slay activities.

Guterres laid out his plan to stem terrorism around the world. As the Palestinians are his adopted wards, he can actively stop the terrorism in Israel. If he only showed the will to follow his own advice.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The UN Fails on its Own Measures to address the Conditions Conducive to the Spread of Terrorism

The United Nations Once Again “Encourages” Hamas

Stopping the Purveyors of Hateful Propaganda

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

The New Salman Abedi High School for Boys in England and the Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel Soccer Tournament in France

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The 2002 Massacres of Netanya and Jenin (music by Gorecki)

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

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The New York Times sets the gold standard for a pro-Palestinian Arab narrative in the United States mainstream media. It never stops trying to make the point that Palestinians are non-violent resistance fighters against the horrible Israeli-occupation machine. Here’s a link from FirstOneThrough to appreciate the breadth and depth of the Times bias.

In the latest example, on July 9, 2019, the Times wrote an article on page A4 with two pictures and a map called “As Weary Protesters Turn to Pocketbook Issues, West Bank Quiets.” The online version had three more pictures of Palestinian Arabs “protesting before Israeli soldiers.”

The 1,200-word article used the word “protest” 8 times, not including the title. It used the word “resistance” 6 times. “Violence” appeared only twice.

Pretty remarkable for the people who launched a stabbing and car ramming intifada throughout 2015 on the heels of an all-out war from their cousins in Gaza in 2014, who continue to stone people and cars, and who have a leadership which continues to use its scant resources to pay terrorists who maim and murder Israelis.

A particularly choice paragraph captures the NYT’s #AlternativeFacts portrayal of the Palestinians as despondent about their peaceful strategy and anger at the United States:

“An opinion poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in June found that only 23 percent of Palestinians saw nonviolent resistance as the most effective way of achieving statehood, while three-quarters said the Palestinian leadership should reject the American peace plan.”

Fewer than one in four Palestinian Arabs believe there is any effectiveness of “nonviolent resistance.” The majority of Palestinians believe prefer other actions. According to the actual opinion poll:

“The public is divided over the role of negotiations and armed struggle in the establishment of a Palestinian state next to the state of Israel: 38% think armed struggle is the most effective means; 35% think that negotiation is the most effective means; and 23% believe that non-violent resistance is the most effective.”

But the Times wrote a huge article about the Palestinians’ LEAST PREFERRED method of establishing a new Palestinian state, well behind violence and negotiations.

Which begs the question, why not write a 1,200-word article about Palestinians preference for violence? Their attitude has been consistent in EVERY Palestinian poll, taken over the last several years. (Well, in actuality, they are Palestinian polls, so the words “violence” and “terrorism” are only used in connection with Israelis, whereas Palestinians engage in an “armed intifada” or “armed struggle“).

Further, the Palestinians oppose a two-state solution, with 47% in favor and 50% against as of June 2019. It is also a point that the NY Times never mentions.

The Times presents a fake narrative to its readership that the Palestinians are in favor of a two-state solution and are valiantly engaged in nonviolent protest to achieve their aims, despite every Palestinian poll which shows the opposite. But facts do not matter for the Times; the editors have chosen the good people and the bad people in every story. And in case you’ve been buried under a Palestinian rock and missed it, the Chosen People are the very bad people.

Related First.One.Through articles:

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

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

For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

The New York Times Whitewashes Motivation of Palestinian Assassin of Robert Kennedy

The Real “Symbol of the Conflict” is Neta Sorek

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

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Linda Sarsour as Pontius Pilate

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The term “cultural appropriation” (or sometimes “cultural misappropriation” ) is defined by Dictionary.com as “the act of adopting elements of an outside, often minority culture, including knowledge, practices, and symbols, without understanding or respecting the original culture and context.” It has been used by some “social justice activists” to attack the majority culture who use certain foods, clothing or symbols of a minority ethnic or religious group in a manner that is viewed as demeaning.

How much worse is it to not just use articles of clothing or food but to abuse a group’s ancestors and history? How much more sinister is it to do it to deliberately anger and attack a group, rather than take an action meant with no malice?

Leaders of the Palestinian Authority and its founder Yasser Arafat had often declared that Jesus was a Muslim Palestinian Arab in interviews, press releases and their official TV. Their transparent goal was to make it sound that Jesus was not a Jew but a Muslim Palestinian Arab like themselves. They manufactured a fake history that not only did Jews have no history in the region, but Palestinian Arabs did, in an effort to undermine the claims of Jews as being indigenous to the holy land.

The argument was also designed to enable Muslim Arabs to assert control of Christian holy sites in the holy land, not just Muslim ones, and align themselves with billions of Christians around the world. The actual Judeo-Christian history in the holy land with Muslim Arabs as foreign invaders over six centuries later was repackaged and retold as a Palestinian Muslim Arab-Christian story, with Jews coming as the foreign invaders two millenia later in creating Israel.

But you can almost forgive the Palestinian Authority for their insults and lies. They have cornered themselves into asserting that their entire claim to the land is that they are indigenous. The much older and deeper Jewish history undermines the very foundation to their claim.

Further, the Palestinian Authority lives in a third world backwater of their own making in the Middle East. Rather than create a liberal society like Israel, they cling to their repressive brothers which afford little to no rights for women and minorities.

So how should one consider the same remarks coming from a “progressive, social justice activist” like Linda Sarsour on July 6, 2019?

Sarsour lives in the United States of America, a predominantly Christian country. She was a co-founder of the “Women’s March” in Washington, D.C. and claims to care about oppressed minorities – even Jews, the most persecuted group on the planet. She has the background to know better and speak clearer than a bunch of old Arab men in the Middle East.

So why did she choose to insult billions of Christians and a couple of million Jews with the notion that Jesus wasn’t a Jew but a Muslim Arab? Why attack the faith of billions of others?

Sarsour is part of a new wave of Muslim jihadists. Not the ones who used physical force to invade lands like the jihadists from Arabia who swept through the Jewish holy land and north Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries killing and converting non-believers. Sarsour describes herself as a jihadist in the mold of using words “of truth” to form a particular narrative. As she said in July 2017:

“What is the best form of jihad, or struggle? And our beloved prophet … said to him, ‘A word of truth in front of a tyrant ruler or leader, that is the best form of jihad. I hope that … when we stand up to those who oppress our communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here in these United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House.”

Are her words “of truth”?

  • Jesus was not an Arab. Arabs didn’t come to the holy land en masse until they invaded in the seventh century, over 600 years after Jesus lived.
  • Jesus was not a Muslim. He was a Jew and father of the Christian faith.
  • Jesus was not a Palestinian. In the time of Jesus, the area was known as Judea. After the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135CE), well after Jesus lived, the Roman conquerors changed the name of the province to “Syria Palestina.” The word “Palestine” didn’t even exist while Jesus was alive.

The same Roman Empire that crucified Jesus, destroyed the Jewish Temple, slaughtered the Jews of Judea and built pagan altars throughout the holy land, renamed the province to destroy the Jewish and nascent Christian spirit in the land. To call Jesus a Palestinian is not just incorrect, it is a highly charged insult which brands him with the signatures of his killers and everything he loathed.

Sarsour is seemingly happy to dress the part of Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judea who sentenced Jesus to death: destroy those who believe differently, rebrand the land, retell a new story to define a new narrative to your liking. In a “progressive social activist” world where “my truths” are more potent than facts, the alt-left audience is ripe for her fabrications. In rallying to her support, they won’t even pause to consider the outright lies or cultural appropriation.

Sarsour is not bringing words “of truth” to America, she is bringing a highly-charged jihad to destroy the Judeo-Christian roots of America.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Considering Nazis and Radical Islam on the 75th Anniversary of D-Day

Criticizing Muslim Antisemitism is Not Islamophobia

The Mourabitat Women of Congress

Bitter Burnt Ends: Talking to a Farrakhan Fan

Where’s the March Against Anti-Semitism?

“Protocols of the Elders of Zion – The Musical”

The Cave of the Jewish Matriarch and Arab Cultural Appropriation

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Jordan’s King Abdullah II Fights to Retain His Throne

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On May 29, 2019, the United States team tasked with forging peace in the Middle East met with Jordan’s monarch Abdullah II. Abdullah insisted that the so called “deal of the century” include an independent sovereign state of Palestine with “East Jerusalem” as its capital.

On its face, the king’s comment might seem a gesture of support for the Palestinian Authority. It was actually more than that. It was a statement made out of fear about losing his own monarchy.

To understand the current state of the Jordanian king, one must appreciate two factors: the history of Jordan regarding Palestine and the current situation in the country.

History of Jordan / Transjordan / Palestine

When the Ottoman Empire was facing defeat in World War I, the world powers sought to set up distinct new entities in the Middle East. The broad region now known as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Israel were to be administered by the United Kingdom and France for a period of years until each would become an established new state. The Mandate of Palestine (1922) fell under the UK and included the area now known as Jordan.

Due to effective lobbying of the British government, the Hashemite family was able to secure a monarchy on 77% of the Palestine Mandate in 1924, incorporating all of the area east of the Jordan River. Such division was hinted at in the Mandate (Article 25), but other key provisions of the Mandate were ignored by the Hashemite king, notably Article 15 which forbade the exclusion of any person based on religion (no Jews allowed as detailed below).

The Hashemite kingdom’s quest for more of Palestine would play out over the years 1948 to 1954.

When Israel declared itself an independent state in May 1948 as the British mandate ended, the Jordanians attacked the nascent Jewish State together with armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Egypt. At war’s end in 1949, the Jordanians took over Judea and Samaria which would later become known as the “West Bank.” They ethnically cleansed all Jews from the region, including the eastern portion of Jerusalem, while tens of thousands of Arabs from Israel moved to the West Bank and Jordan. In 1950, Jordan officially annexed the West Bank in a move not recognized by any country other than the United Kingdom and Pakistan.

In an effort to further cement its ownership of “Greater Jordan,” the Hashemites gave all West Bank Arabs Jordanian citizenship, as well as those who moved to Jordan. The 1954 Jordanian Citizenship law specifically forbade Jews from obtaining citizenship (Article 3), a bold anti-Semitic initiative which received no condemnation at the United Nations.

In June 1967, Jordan attacked Israel again. However this time it lost the territory it had illegally annexed. Many of the Arabs who had moved to the West Bank in 1948-9 then moved to Jordan, while many others remained, holding onto their Jordanian citizenship even though they no longer lived in Jordanian-ruled land.

Many Arabs were furious with the failures of the leadership.

In 1964, several Arabs decided that they did want to be ruled by the Hashemites of Jordan nor the Jews of Israel and established the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to launch a “holy war” to free the land from “International Zionism and colonialism.” The 1967 loss of more land was an alarming setback in those goals.

In September 1970, the PLO fought to topple the Hashemite monarchy attempting to kill King Hussein, King Abdullah’s father, and take over Jordan. The Jordanian army routed the Palestinian fighters, killing over 3,000 of them. The remaining fighters were expelled to Lebanon, where they would later participate in the Lebanese Civil War and then wars against Israel.

The Jordanians would not be done with the Palestinian issue.

After Israel fought to expel the PLO terrorists from Lebanon in 1982, they moved on to Tunisia, but only for a few years. The Tunisians withdrew the passports issued to several members of the PLO leadership and cancelled the residency permits of many others in 1986. The group began to spread throughout Algeria, Yemen, Sudan and Syria, establishing terrorist training camps around the region.

And they would soon find themselves back next door to Jordan.

In 1988, Yasser Arafat nominally recognized Israel’s right to exist, as the Palestinians declared an independent state, a move not recognized by most of the world. The Jordanians revoked the Jordanian citizenship of the Palestinians at this time, leaving them theoretically with Palestinian citizenship, but effectively no citizenship since no countries recognized Palestine. The Jordanians would also give up all claims to the West Bank (indicating that they clearly sought to recapture that land before such time).

A few years later in 1991, 400,000 Arabs of Palestinian descent were expelled from Kuwait, due to the PLO’s siding with Iraq in its war with Kuwait. The vast majority of these Arabs would settle in Jordan, inflating the already significant number of Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in the country.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Arab “intifada” against Israeli Jews would rage from 1987 until 1993. It was in that year that Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO, moved from Tunisia to Gaza, and the current Jordanian King Abdullah would take a Palestinian bride, Rania. The Oslo I Accords of September 1993 set in motion a plan for a “two-state solution,” one for Arabs (Palestine) and one for Jews (Israel), helping pave the way for the Jordanians to make peace with Israel in the following year, in October 1994.

The tug-of-war between the Palestinians-and-Jordanians, the Palestinians-and-Israel, and Israel-and-Jordan was seemingly coming to a peaceful conclusion.

It was not to be.

Current Situation of the Hashemite Kingdom

The Oslo I Accords would be followed by the more comprehensive Oslo II Accords in 1995 which set in motion a plan to arrive at a conclusive deal within five years, by September 2000. Those five intermediate years were marked by constant Arab terrorist attacks against Israel, but the two parties still tried to advance to a peace agreement.

The Jordanian King Hussein who forged the peace agreement with Israel died in February 1999, and was succeeded by his son King Abdullah II. Abdullah kept the peace treaty with Israel in place, a move unpopular with many Jordanians during the Second Intifada which began in September 2000 when the Oslo II Accords failed to bring about a Palestinian State. Abdullah’s police and military fought with members of the Parliament and countered riots in the street which were committed to the Palestinian cause.

The monarchy was once again caught in the three-way fight between Jordan, Israel and the Palestinians.

And then 9/11 happened.

King Abdullah strongly condemned the attacks against America, and pushed forward a much more authoritarian shutdown of the public protest in support of Palestinians. However, the daily bloodshed of the Second Intifada made the protests from the streets where most people were SAPs and had relatives in the West Bank hard to contain. Queen Rania herself led some of the protests.

But King Abdullah saw that America was coming to wage war again in Iraq after the attacks of 9/11. He ruled over a people who overwhelmingly supported Iraq just a decade earlier, and who cheered when Iraq fired scud missiles into Israel which wasn’t even part of the battle. How could Abdullah manage such a population when he relied on America for economic aid and military protection?

As described in an article by The Middle East Policy Council, King Abdullah instituted a “Jordan First” policy, to manage the internal threat.

“Through its emphasis on domestic priorities, Jordan First offered an innovative political strategy that mixed elections with repression in an effort to ensure a loyalist parliament that would allow the Hashemite regime to continue its support of American policies in an effort to secure the economic benefits essential to the regime’s long-term survival…. In brief, these policies are the maintenance of normal ties with Israel, alignment with U.S. policies toward the Middle East, and active support for the American war on terror.”

Abdullah prioritized Israel-Jordan over Jordan-Palestine while he ignored Palestine-Israel. And he would continue to do so throughout the Second Intifada, even while occasionally berating the Israeli government, in an effort to convince the Arab street that he was not a puppet of the US administration or a closet Zionist.

And then the “Arab Spring” happened in December 2010, devolving most notably into the Syrian Civil War in March 2011.

The bloodshed and anarchy of a fellow Arab monarch slaughtering his own citizens at his borders was difficult for Abdullah to watch. So his country of 9.7 million people welcomed almost a million Syrian refugees, almost 10 percent of its population. This was on top of the over 2.3 million people in Jordan who were registered as Palestinian refugees.

In total, King Abdullah rules over a population in which one-third of the people don’t identify with the country. The loyalties, allegiances and aspirations of the “Palestinian”- Jordanians and Syrian refugees lie elsewhere, in neighboring lands. The country is like an airport waiting area in which the flights keep on getting delayed and the people become more and more restless.

Which brings us back to King Abdullah’s comments today.

The Tottering Hashemite Crown

Jordan’s unemployment rate now stands at 18.7%, roughly the same high mark for the past six quarters. By way of comparison, Israel’s unemployment rate is at a remarkable low of 3.8%, a level which keeps getting lower. Jordan may have survived the Arab Spring violence that engulfed Syria, Iraq and Yemen, but it is limping along.

The “Arab Spring” may not have liberated the Arab world, but it made the populations question the legitimacy of their governments. This is much more true in the motley group of “Jordanians” who have nothing to do with the Hashemite who sits on the throne, a man who cannot deliver jobs.

It is therefore impossible for Abdullah to take on another 2.9 million Arabs living in the West Bank in a possible confederation scenario. Such a move would bring the Palestinians to roughly 42% of the Jordanian population, and together with the Syrians, a majority. And this majority has no loyalty for a small tribe which took control of the area almost 100 years ago. In Abduallah’s calculation, the Palestinians must gain their own state, or he risks losing his monarchy in Jordan.

The Jordanian king often uses passionate and flowery speech to convince his audience of his good nature. But as a creature of the volatile Middle East, he is simply a crafty survivor, fighting to retain his family dynasty among a restless and poor population which doesn’t recognize him.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Oh Abdullah, Jordan is Not So Special

The Jordanian King Abdullah’s Absurdities

Time for King Abdullah of Jordan to Denounce the Mourabitoun

The Original Nakba: The Division of “TransJordan”

Jordan’s Deceit and Hunger for Control of Jerusalem

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Jordan’s Hypocrisy: Queen Rania on Palestinians and UNRWA

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The Palestinian-American You Never Heard Of: Issam Akel

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The mainstream media often reports on a handful of Palestinian-Americans. The most dominant two are women who live in America: freshman member of Congress Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Linda Sarsour, a co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March. The outspoken women often attack the the State of Israel and Zionists who support the Jewish State and they get to enjoy the press coverage which magnifies their prominence.

The press also highlights certain Palestinian Americans who live in the Middle East to portray a particular narrative of events between Israel and the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs).

Consider Tariq Abu Kheidar, a 15-year old who was beaten by Israeli police for taking part in riots. The New York Times featured a picture of the Palestinian American teenager in a huge color photo on its front page on July 7, 2014. For the paper, it symbolized the conflict of an aggressive Israeli force beating up on Arab teenagers.

Tariq Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian-American teenager who was beaten up by an Israeli border police officer in 2014. Oded Balilty/Associated Press

The Times would cover the story again in November 2015 in a follow up article “Israeli Officer Sentenced to Community Service in Beating of Palestinian American.” The Times not only got to rehash the story, but highlight that Israeli courts did not aggressively prosecute zealous law enforcement officials who beat up Arabs, in an attempt to make a parallel to police officers in the United States attacking minorities.

However, the Times never reported on another Palestinian American who was the focus of international diplomacy, a man sentenced to a life in prison with hard labor by the Palestinian Authority for the “crime” of selling land to a Jew.

Issam Akel, a 55-year old man with American citizenship who lived in the eastern part of Jerusalem, was arrested by the Palestinian Authority in October 2018. His crime of selling his house to a Jew could have carried a death sentence, but he “only” received a life sentence, possibly because he was an American. The Trump administration secured his release to American authorities in January 2019. The Times would neither report on his arrest nor his release.

(Screenshot/Wattan News Agency)

The Times will not write about the vile antisemitism and suffering of Palestinian Americans under the Palestinian Authority as doing so undermines the narrative that the PA is moderate. The Times will only write stories where Palestinian Americans are victims of right-wing Americans and Israelis.

Related First.One.Through articles:

For The NY Times, Antisemitism Exists Because the Alt-Right is Racist and Israel is Racist

A Review of the The New York Times Anti-Israel Bias

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

NY Times Disgraceful Journeys

The New York Times Whitewashes Motivation of Palestinian Assassin of Robert Kennedy

Thomas Friedman is a Peddler of Racist Fiction and Adolescent Fantasy

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Seeing the Holocaust Through Nakba Eyes

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People have accused U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) of getting her facts wrong about her version of history as it related to the Holocaust in stating that Palestinian Arabs helped European Jewry when they did the exact opposite. Her defenders explained that her words were misconstrued and taken out of context and that she merely suggested that it was the Palestinian Arabs who were the principle party who were left to deal with the “Jewish Problem” after Europe murdered its Jews.


U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)

The direct connection of the “Nakba” of Palestinian Arabs to the Holocaust of European Jewry is not simply a falsification of history by a lone congressman. The connection is widely promoted in progressive circles.

The New York Times suggested that both Jews and Palestinians have endured suffering, and the key to the parties living with each other is for the Palestinians to understand the Holocaust and for Jews to understand the Nakba.

Putting aside the fact that comparing the Holocaust and the Nakba is akin to a ten-car fatal accident relative to a parking ticket, the two parties comprehend each other’s narrative completely differently.

Jews understand the Nakba. They are a people consumed with guilt for anything and everything they may or may not have done. What other people could produce comedians plagued with anxiety like Woody Allen and Richard Lewis or psychologists like Sigmund Freud? This is a group of neurotic people who, upon accusation of doing something intentionally or not, real or imagined, will immediately ask for forgiveness before they even know the topic of discussion. While the Bible asked Jews to feel empathy, Jews contorted that message into always feeling guilty.

Israelis appreciate the Nakba from an ARAB POINT OF VIEW. They understand the Arabs’ grievance and position about Jews coming into Palestine and changing the demographics of the land. The Arabs were a majority and now they’re not; they were under Muslim control (Ottomans) and now they’re not; grandparents used to live in Israel and now they don’t. Further, the ongoing situation of many Arabs being stateless is understood as a fact. While Jews might use different language – for example, not saying that they are “colonizers” since they are indigenous to the land – and have a wide variety of opinions regarding the methods of paving a path towards an enduring peace, the Palestinian Arab perspective is not distorted by Jewish claims.

For Jews of all political leanings, the Palestinian narrative has been heard and internalized.

However, the situation is not remotely the same for the Arabs regarding the Holocaust. Palestinians have been taught that they cannot accept the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, as IT MUST BE TIED TO AND SEEN THROUGH THE NAKBA.

  • The Holocaust showed off the worst side of humanity: To acknowledge Palestinian Arab participation would be to admit that your ancestors were evil anti-Semites. Maybe it would imply that current Arabs are as well, and their desire for a Jew-free country has nothing to do with ancestral claims, but naked antisemitism.
  • The Holocaust was a uniquely European affair and it was the western world’s guilt that made them vote at the United Nations to create a Jewish State: Convincing the West that it made the Palestinians pay the price for European crimes might change their behavior to favor Palestinians in the Arab-Israel conflict today.

For Palestinian Arabs, the Holocaust is used as a vehicle to undermine Israel today.

Just as over 3,000 years of Jewish history in the Jewish holy land is ignored because it undermines Arab claims that only they are indigenous to Palestine, rewriting the history of the Holocaust can burnish the Palestinian position.

Mahmoud Abbas wrote his doctoral dissertation on a particularly noxious form of Holocaust denial in which he claimed that Jews around the world had no interest in moving to Palestine in the 1920’s and the 1930’s. Therefore, to encourage immigration to Palestine, a number of leading Zionists conspired with the Nazi regime to make life unbearable for Jews so that they would flee to Palestine to create a viable Jewish State.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s recent comments are complements to the theme, claiming that not only did the Palestinians not conspire with the Nazis, it was the Palestinians who gave the Jews a state.

When Palestinians view the Holocaust, they think Jewish suffering literally CAUSED Arab suffering in losing the land, while they see Palestinian suffering of the Nakba as causing Jewish joy in creating Israel. This clouded vision leads Palestinians to believe that misery can yield a global reward, so they will continue to distort the actual history of the Holocaust and Nakba to get the outcome they desire today.

It is a sick by-product of ignoring the history of Jews, denying the rights of Jews, and refusing to accept Jews.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

The Ultimate Chutzpah: A New Form of Holocaust Denial

The Palestinian’s Three Denials

Palestinians of Today and the Holocaust

The Termination Shock of Survivors

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

Abbas’ European Audience for His Rantings

Failing to Mention the British White Paper of 1939 when Discussing Refugees

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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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