The eye-spy game began from the moment the taxi pulled up to the international terminal at the airport. Who else is going to Israel?
The car doors popped open quickly as the airport police pushed people to unload quickly. Eyes scanned the crowd. Who will see someone they know first? The four family members entered the terminal in a tie; zeros all around.
I sensed disappointment from my daughter. It’s Thanksgiving and Chanukah all in one. Where were her peeps?
Arriving the recommended three hours before scheduled departure has both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, there’s no time panic in going through the long security process but unfortunately, people-watching was light.
We were directed by airport personnel to join a line quite a distance from the counter. Within five minutes the first familiar faces appeared – a couple we knew from high school going to visit their son studying in Israel for the second year. It became the familiar line of questions among the many people we saw at the gate: Who are you visiting? Where are they studying? Were you able to get in at any time before this during the pandemic?
While Israel led the world in vaccinations, it also cycled through various lockdowns. Some people with immediate family members living in Israel (not just studying in school) were able to come during COVID but others had to wait until now.
It was interesting how many people were coming just to visit family members and how many were combining it with business. Over the past decades, the country emerged as a leading technology powerhouse. It did not suffer the financial meltdown of 2008-9 that caught most of the world, and today its currency stands out as one of the strongest.
We landed at Ben Gurion Airport and met more people we knew as we waited at passport control. The exchanges continued: Mivaseret second year. Netiv Aryeh first year. Harova first year. The line seemed to go quickly.
After picking up luggage we went through a very efficient COVID-19 testing area which was set up to process all inbound visitors and then exited the building to the taxi stand. Visitors congregated outside to welcome guests, including those surprising their parents who came in to visit.
Lines of people going through COVID testing at Ben Gurion Airport, Israel
We headed to Jerusalem to be reunited with our son. It was wonderful having all of the kids together again.
The kids slept while we grabbed morning coffee at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Arab and Jewish hotel workers were busy arranging for the morning tourists as we had the place for ourselves. We then went to morning prayers around the corner and got to hear the priestly blessings, a tradition that happens every day, only in the holy land.
Breakfast at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem
Israel is fortunate to be a thriving multi-ethnic democracy with remarkable economy amid a region in freefall. Jews are fortunate to be able to live, learn, visit and pray in the holy land even in the backdrop of a crazy world.
The Church has done the hard work of confronting its past. It has the doctrine. It has the precedent. What it needs, in moments like this, is the discipline to match.
The reality is that a pro-Israel “extremist” allegedly planned an attack on a pro-Palestinian “extremist.” But the Times editorialized by showing the smiling face of an “activist” worried about the “suffering” of her people. Such is the alt-left embrace of the toxic “deformity in Palestinian culture.”
Parshat Tzav centers on a single, stubborn image: a fire that must keep burning.Day and night, without interruption, the flame is sustained. Wood is added. Ash is cleared. The rhythm continues. No drama surrounds it. That is the point. The Torah uses a precise word: tamid—continuous.Rashi sharpens it further: continuous means that the fire burns through Shabbat.…
UNRWA, the controversial UN agency which is solely devoted to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and other local people, held a two day fundraising appeal which began on November 16, 2021. Led by the governments of Jordan and Sweden, they appealed to countries around the world to donate to a temporary agency which was established in 1949.
According to UNRWA, it serviced 5.7 million refugees and 685,000 other people (mainly poor people and those married to descendants of refugees) in the five fields of operation. That means that 10.7% of the UNRWA’s wards are not refugees, even under the exaggerated definition that UNRWA uses. In the West Bank, the numbers are even more stark, where 19.5% of the UNRWA base are “others.” Many of these extra clients are poor Arabs in Jerusalem, as noted in the fine print of the UNRWA report.
UNRWA added services to thousands of poor Arabs in the eastern portion of Jerusalem, resulting in an inflated 19.5% of UNRWA wards in the West Bank being “others” compared to just 10.2% in Gaza.
As evidence of distortion in the West Bank, there are very few students relative to the population, especially compared to Gaza. While the percent of the population below 14 years old is high in both locales at 35.3% and 42.5% in the West Bank and Gaza, respectively, (and 17.4% and 18.0% for 15-24 year olds) only 4.2% of UNRWA’s West Bank wards are in UNRWA schools, while the figure is 17.4% in Gaza – four times the rate! That’s because children in the West Bank have many more options and prefer to stay away from UNRWA’s schools.
UNRWA services 287,000 students in Gaza but only 46,000 in the West Bank. The youth in the West Bank prefer using non-UNRWA schools because they have a choice while there are few options in Gaza.
Despite UNRWA’s schools being unpopular in the West Bank, the agency continues to hire. The pupil-to-student ratio was 20, in sharp contrast to 30 students per teacher in Gaza.
The US Ambassador to the UN may be in on the joke as she tweeted during her visit to a UN school on November 17: “Today, I met with educators and students at Jalazone @UNRWA Girls School in Ramallah. I was inspired by their stories and dreams for the future, and I spoke to UNRWA officials about how to make their work stronger, more efficient, and more accountable.“
Moves of UNRWA to Jerusalem and Wards to Statelessness
For the period of January 1, 2012, UNRWA began to break out the “other” category for the first time. It was also the last year that it published the annual report from Gaza. Starting the following year – a year which saw the US Democratic Party yell at its national convention that it no longer considered Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – it began to publish its report in Jerusalem, as noted at the bottom of the reports.
Over the nine years since this breakout started, the refugees in the West Bank grew from 727,471 to 871,537, a growth of 20%, while the other wards grew from 147,156 to 211,116, a 43% jump – over twice the rate. The situation was even more dramatic in Jordan, where the UNRWA refugee population grew 17% while the other category grew by a whopping 130%. It’s not hard to speculate that people married in to get free services from UNRWA, and the fat agency could funnel cash and services to actual refugees from the Syrian civil war who flooded into Jordan.
The majority of UNRWA’s clientele actually had Jordanian citizenship from the time the agency was founded until 1988. Jordan illegally annexed what is now commonly called the “West Bank” in 1950 and gave all the Arabs there citizenship. Many Arabs moved back-and-forth between Jordan and the West Bank (both part of the original Palestine Mandate) until 1967 when it became harder to do so after Jordan (and West Bankers) attacked Israel and lost the region. Jordan continued to give those Arabs Jordanian citizenship until it withdrew it abruptly in July 1988, making these Arabs stateless.
A total of 55.5% of UNRWA wards would still be Jordanians had the king not removed their citizenship.
Staffing
In 2000, UNRWA had a staff of 22,447 to address a population of 3,806,055, or a staff member for every 170 registered persons. At the end of 2020, the staff was down from immediate prior years due to the Trump administration cutbacks, but up overall to 28,563 staffers for 6,388,887 people, or one staffer per 224 people. By way of comparison, in 2020 the UNHCR global refugee agency had to deal with 76.7 million people fleeing wars far from their homes requiring brand new housing and schools, was staffed by only 17,300 people, or a staffer for every 4,433 real refugees.
UNRWA has operated in the exact same geography with the same people speaking the same language for decades but still has a staff that is 20x the size proportionately of UHCR which has to handle real refugees fleeing across the world requiring everything new.
Summary
UNRWA is grossly over-staffed, especially relative to the global refugee agency that really does need the resources. It inflated its mandate by adding nearly 11% new people to its roster and moved its center to the contested city of Jerusalem and began servicing eastern Jerusalem’s poor Arabs, making the agency yet more politicized. Further, in terms of competence, UNRWA has shown that it is unable to attract students to its schools.
One needn’t look to news stories and editorials about UNRWA’s supporting anti-Semitism, harboring and employing terrorists, redefining “refugees,” extending its mandate and hearing how Arabs are deregistering from UNRWA to realize how disastrous it is. The agency’s own numbers make clear that it is inept and past time to be shut down.
The United Nations has many special agencies and offices devoted uniquely for the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs), a non-member entity. The most infamous is UNRWA, an agency which gives aid to the descendants of Palestinian refugees and other people who live in the area, which is distinct from the UNHCR which handles every actual refugee fleeing wars around the world. The global body also has an office devoted to Palestinians which is marketed as “Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO).”
At the UN, the “Middle East Peace Process” has nothing to do with giving Israel an iota of security, aid, defense or support. It is solely about giving SAPs money, programming, infrastructure and a new country.
Money, Money, Money
A wonderful example can be seen in the November 17, 2021 UNSCO report. The 15 page report reviewed the financial crisis of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and suggested remedies. Israel was mentioned in the report a few times, mostly in regards to either positive or negative actions it took in relation to the PA economy.
At paragraphs eight and nine, the tension between between Israel and the PA – including fighting in May 2021 and steps taken to reduce tensions – was broached. It was a delayed but welcome sign that the office tasked with “Middle East Peace” would actually discuss the topic and make constructive suggestions. Alas, by paragraph ten – and for the remainder of the document – UNSCO could only describe the financial situation of the PA.
The report laid out its grand view of the core problem (presumably to peace) and then an action plan to address those issues:
“Nevertheless, a piecemeal approach to addressing these challenges, along with a lack of progress on the broader political issues, risks perpetuating a continuous cycle of crisis management. Rather, to stabilize the economic and security situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and in and around Gaza, and to strengthen the fiscal situation of the PA and its institutions, a broader framework of engagement—including parallel steps by all parties—needs to be re-established between the Government of Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the international community. This will allow for moving beyond the current impasse and refocusing on building an independent, democratic, contiguous, viable, and sovereign Palestinian State living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security. The present report to the Ad-Hoc Liaison Committee charts out a framework for stabilizing the economic and security situation, undertaking reforms, and promoting development. We propose a three-track approach focusing on initiatives to 1) address the immediate economic and fiscal situation facing the PA and strengthen PA institutions and basic service delivery, 2) solidify the cessation of hostilities and support economic development in Gaza, and 3) generate longer-term economic growth and sustainable livelihoods across the OPT. Some of these initiatives are already underway, but other initiatives need urgent donor support or policy changes from the parties.”
The goal of the report, as highlighted above, is to build a Palestinian State. The three courses of action to achieve such mission are all about supporting the financial condition of 1) the PA, 2) Gaza and 3) the West Bank. The rest of the report provided recommendations for building the PA economy and then appealed for money for Palestinians.
Genocidal Jihadists
With such an approach – throwing additional billions of dollars at Palestinian Arabs – without addressing core issues blocking peace such as systemic antisemitism, denial of Jewish history and rights, incitement to violence and refusal to coexist with Jews, the report from the UN office tasked with Middle East Peace read like a donor appeal pamphlet rather than a roadmap for coexistence.
In regards to pursuing “peace” the report offered the following as hurdles:
“Meaningful progress, however, will be impossible without resolving the broader context: a grim reality of military occupation, violence, internal Palestinian divisions, illegal settlement expansion, demolitions, displacement, settler-related violence, and the ever-present threat of escalation, including rocket attacks by armed groups, in the Gaza Strip. The continued deterioration on the ground threatens not only Palestinian development and the enjoyment of human rights, but also makes building a Palestinian state and achieving a lasting peace more difficult.“
According to the UN office devoted to peace, the obstacles to peace are solely Israeli actions and the division between Fatah and Hamas/ the West Bank and Gaza. The “threat of escalation” towards violence is from unnamed “armed groups in the Gaza Strip.” This is outrageous on multiple levels and speaks to the heart of the failure of the UN to advance peace in the region.
The UN willfully ignores this reality and advocates for throwing money at the anti-Semitic jihadists in the belief that it will make them change their minds and pursue peaceful coexistence.
It’s worse than willful ignorance. It’s a coverup, a sanitization of the core problems.
The report called for aid to Gaza in regards to materials and money in a manner that will avoid “diversions.” The casual phrase the report used twice obfuscates the nefarious actions of Hamas which uses the materials and money to kill Jews.
So it’s actually worse than a coverup. The UN seeks to empower these genocidal jihadists, if not openly and directly, then at least indirectly.
That’s why the report did not name the political-terrorist group Hamas and just generic “armed groups” from Gaza. That’s why it bemoaned the “internal Palestinian divisions.”
It’s a disgrace that in a three step plan for promoting peace, UNSCO did not demand the end of Hamas and the handing over of all its weapons to the PA. Those should be priority items one and two.
Ignoring Israelis, Even Those Murdered by Terrorists
A document and office about peace should have a basic understanding that there are two parties to consider. When writing about children’s trauma from the cycles of violence, the report only discusses the kids in Gaza. What about the kids in Israel who live under the rain of missiles and arson kites overhead and terrorist tunnels underground? Is their safety and trauma not important?
Nothing encapsulates the complete disregard for Israeli lives as much as the discussion in the report around so called “prisoner payments.” These are funds that the PA pays to the families of Arab terrorists who attack Israelis, essentially paying for terror. The US, European Union and other countries have lambasted the PA for this activity which incentivizes violence.
Rather than explicitly call out the noxious incitement, the report notes that Israel’s deduction of tax receipts in the same amount of the terror payments hurts the Palestinian economy!
“From January through June 2021, based on 2018 legislation, Israel was deducting and holding NIS50 million per month from the transfer of clearance revenues delivered to the Palestinian Authority in response to the “prisoners payments.” Starting in July, the monthly deductions were increased to NIS100 million. These monthly deductions represent a significant strain on the Palestinian fiscal situation. The payments made to Palestinian prisoners, their families, or the families of those killed or injured in the context of attacks also greatly complicate Palestinian relations with Israel and key donors. International technical assistance could help the Palestinian Authority instead strengthen its existing cash transfer program that targets the most vulnerable Palestinian households.“
That this report can be published under the title of “peace” by the United Nations is an outrage. It effectively summarized all one needs to know about how the UN views Israeli lives and security. The maimed Israeli civilians are insignificant and not even an worthy of mention. Dead Jewish children are not even an afterthought in the quest to fund Palestinians. The UN is worried about the Arab terrorists “killed or injured in the context of attacks” on Jews, and the financial impact to their families, inverting the perpetrator to a victim, and the Jewish souls to the dustbin.
If the UN wants to promote two states living side-by-side in peace, it should lambast the “prisoner payments,” and pay to fix and strengthen the security fence between Israel and Gaza, as well as the bomb shelters in schools and playgrounds in Israel. It should fund counseling for Israeli children suffering from trauma due to the genocidal jihadists living next door, rather than continue to support those terrorists, thereby adding to the kids’ distress.
Tor Wennesland of UNSCO meeting with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh. The UNSCO Twitter feed is solely devoted to Palestinians without any meetings or concerns for Israelis.
The Appeal
The report concludes as one would expect – an appeal for money for Palestinians:
“As always, we stand ready to assist the PA with its own ambitious reform and development agenda, as articulated at successive donor meetings and in the renewed National Development Plan. In support of these efforts, the UN will continue consulting with our international partners and with the Palestinian Authority to implement an integrated response strategy to the ongoing crises, such as the framework proposed above.“
UNSCO lost all semblance of being an office to promote peace between two parties and noted that it stands ready to assist only one party – the Palestinian Authority – raise money. That’s what the United Nations has essentially become – a redistribution arm which seeks to boycott Israel and transfer the monies to Palestinians. Is it a surprise that the report lifted from the American Democratic agenda a line “building back better” in its report?
The UN Special Coordinator for Middle East Peace should properly rebrand itself as the UN Coordinator for Palestinian Appeals. It may be more successful at raising more money from countries which have become more open about their own antisemitism and anti-Israel bias, and long ago stopped trying to get Palestinian Arabs to abandon their localized jihadist aspirations.
While the United States and the United Nations talk about engaging with the Palestinian Arabs to bring about a negotiated two state solution with Israel, the Palestinians want none of it.
Over half of Palestinians Arabs in both the West Bank and Gaza are opposed to a two state solution. The trend line according to Palestinian polls has only gotten worse over time.
Opposition to the “Two State Solution” hit an all-time high of 62.8% in the West Bank according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In both the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian Arabs preference is for an “armed struggle,” surpassing those interested in a peace agreement.
West Bankers prefer violence to a peace agreement according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
Gazans prefer violence to a peace agreement by over a 2-to-1 margin, according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In Gaza, the Palestinians prefer the status quo – which we have been told over-and-again is absolutely horrible – at almost the same rate as peace!
The United Nations’ adopted wards have no interest in negotiating with Israel or a two state solution, but politicians like to perform on the global stage, imagine that they are uniquely gifted to break the century-old logjam and win Noble prizes.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), is a good friend of President Joe Biden and a strong proponent of supporting Israel in a bi-partisan manner. Unfortunately, the extremist left-wing group, J Street, continues to make that difficult.
Coons led a bipartisan and bicameral group to Israel to visit senior members of the Israeli government and members of the US Embassy in Jerusalem. The group included Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AK) and Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ).
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was excited to post this picture “Had an excellent meeting with a bipartisan US Congressional delegation in Jerusalem” on November 10, 2021
But the J Street extremist group did not want the left-wing politicians it supports to be part of this bipartisan meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister that limited its outreach to various Palestinian groups, so it arranged for its own competing delegation at the same time, showing complete disrespect for both Coons and Bennett. The Israeli Prime Minister had to smile while being treated as a mere tool in Democratic politics, taking yet another meeting and photo op with the J Street delegation on the same day.
Bennett tweeted: “great meeting Rep. Rosa Delauro (D-CT), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Mondair Jones (D-NY), Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), and Marc Pocan (D-WI) in my office in Jerusalem,” also on November 10.
J Street then took its delegation to Hebron where they supported Bowman’s tweet “Had the honor of meeting with children today in the occupied West Bank city Hebron. There are streets they cannot walk and places they cannot go, simply because they are Palestinian. When I asked about their dreams, their answer was simple: freedom. The occupation must end.” J Street educated the congressman that Israel is racist, rather than educate him that it is Israeli Jews who are forbidden to visit 75% of the city.
Pocan added his own tweet “Today @JamaalBowmanNY & I visited w/ Nasser of Susia in Palestine today to discuss Israeli settler violence to his village. We will be watching to make sure no violence occurs this weekend or anytime. Thanks @jstreetdotorg @BtSIsrael! @Israel @IDF” with a shout out to J Street as he broadcast about “settler violence” in a place that the United States does not recognize, “Palestine.”
Send your support to Senator Coons for his efforts to support America’s strongest ally in the region in a bipartisan manner, and do your utmost to get everyone you know to stop supporting the alt-left group J Street. Call Rep. Bowman at (914) 371-9220 and Rep Pocan at (202) 225-2906 and share your opinions directly with his office as well.
The Biden Administration has decided to pick a fight with Israel over opening an official consulate for the Palestinian Authority in Israel’s capital city of Jerusalem. The logical place to open the office is in Ramallah near the government offices of the Palestinian Authority, like many other countries.
Here is a sampling of some countries with consulate offices in Ramallah:
The Israeli government voiced its strong objections to Biden’s decision to open an office in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minster Naftali Bennett said “My position, which has been presented to the Americans by myself and by Foreign Minister Lapid, is that there is no place for an American consulate that serves the Palestinians in Jerusalem.“
In the past, there was a consulate which serviced Palestinian Arabs since 1967 at 18 Agron Street in the area Palestinians call “West Jerusalem,” in a building that the US has used since the Ottoman Empire ruled the area. It proved impractical and dangerous, as the armed guards which escorted American diplomats from the building in Israel to the offices of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, had to hand off security at the perimeter of Area A. US President Trump shut the Palestinian consulate and moved the services into the embassy to Israel.
If the United States wants to separate the facilities serving Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, it makes the most sense to open the consulate in Ramallah. Alternative locations can be cities in Area A under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The question is how much the Biden Administration wants to anger Israel, please Palestinians and put American diplomats in danger.
possible Location of consulate for palestinians
commentary
Ramallah
Most practical, as seat of PA government. Many countries have consulates there
Jericho
Part of Area A, controlled by the Palestinian Authority
Bethlehem
Part of Area A, and also part of what was envisioned as “corpus separatum” along with Jerusalem in the UN 1947 Partition Plan
eastern Jerusalem
Annexed by Israel, would anger Israel and please PA as actively challenging Israel’s annexation
18 Agron Street, western Jerusalem
Desired location as past location of consulate, but most controversial and impractical
Possible locations of US consulate to Palestinian Authority ranked from least to most controversial and dangerous
The United Nations, liberal media and politicians are bemoaning the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza, arguing that it is a form of “collective punishment” and is creating an economic disaster in the small coastal enclave. Those articles and arguments all fail to describe why the blockade exists and why it is essential for it to continue.
The landside blockade of Gaza began in June 2007, shortly after the political-terrorist group Hamas ousted its rival Fatah from the area. A naval blockade went into effect in January 2009 to further clamp down on the region, after the December 2008-January 2009 war against Israel launched by Hamas.
Ruled by a Terrorist Organization
Hamas is an extremist Islamist terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews. It is a designated foreign terrorist organization by the United States and many western countries. Its 1988 founding charter is the most anti-Semitic political document of the modern age, a combination of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and the Russian forgery, Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to a majority of the Palestinian parliament in 2006. The organization calls for the destruction of Israel in any form and calls for a global jihad against the Jewish State.
Repeated Warsfrom Gaza
Hamas has launched wars from Gaza against Israel in 2008, 2012, 2014 and May 2021. When not sending missiles all over the Jewish State, it launches arson balloons to burn Israeli fields, digs tunnels into Israel to abduct Israelis, and attempts to destroy the separation fence and infiltrate Israel.
Gazans Want To Kill Israeli Civilians
The Anti-Defamation League did global polls in 2014 and 2015 and found the Palestinian Arabs were by far the most anti-Semitic in the world, with 93% of the population harboring anti-Jewish attitudes. However, while almost every Palestinian Arab is anti-Semitic, the Gazans and West Bankers have different views about physically attacking Israeli civilians.
The gap in attitude between Gazans and West Bankers about violently attacking Israeli civilians inside of Israel has continued to grow (source: Palestinian PCPSR polls)
Palestinians poll themselves every quarter about their attitudes on a variety of topics. One of the questions asked each poll is “Concerning armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel, I…” with choices ranging from “strong support”, “support” to “oppose”, “strongly oppose” and “I don’t know.” The fact that the poll asks such question says a lot about Palestinian society generally, but an analysis of the trend in the chart above is important.
Between 2001 and 2008, the attitudes among Gazans and West Bank Arabs were much the same, with Gazans preferring killing Israeli civilians inside of Israel by an average of 11.6% more than West Bankers. After the 2008-9 Gaza war and the implementation of the naval blockade, the gap in attitudes widened. Between 2009 and 2017, Gazans preferred attacking Israeli Jews inside of Israel by a gap of 22.1%, almost double the 2001-8 period. Between 2018 and today, the gap has become even more pronounced, with Gazans voting for violence by a difference of 43.9%, nearly doubling again. Further, after the 2014 and May 2021 wars, Hamas’s popularity soared as did the uptick in Gazans desire to see more Jewish blood.
The difference in attitude is stark and the sentiment is frightening. And it is not theoretical.
In March 2011, after a the horrendous slaughter of a family of five by Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, Gazans celebrated the murder (51.0%) while West Bank Arabs did not (75.6%).
Palestinian poll taken shortly after slaughter of Fogel family in Itamar, including an 11 year old, 4 year old and 3 month old, all stabbed to death.
This attitude was not an outlier. In August 2019, Palestinian Arabs blew up a 17 year-old girl, Rina Shnerb, while she was on a family hike. Over 80% of Gazans supported the attack.
Palestinian poll taken shortly after bomb blew up and killed Rina Shnerb.
It is hard to imagine that there are any places in the world where there would be any support for stabbing to death a 3 month old lying in its crib, or for blowing up a 17 year old girl going on a nature hike. But in Gaza, the MAJORITY support the slaughter of innocent Jews.
For people who want to counter and prevent violent extremism, and who care about peace, justice and the sanctity of human life, it is well past time to pull all support from the terrorist enclave of Gaza, including shutting UNRWA in the area. Human rights and decency demand it.
The Arab League called on Britain to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration calling for the reestablishment of the Jewish national homeland. They were echoing the annual demand from acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas that Britain formerly apologize to Palestinian Arabs “for the catastrophes, misery and injustice this declaration created and to act to rectify these disasters and remedy its consequences, including by the recognition of the state of Palestine.“
Maybe Israel should come up with an apology list of its own.
From Jordan
Jordan was established with almost three-quarters of the land that was allocated by international law to the Palestine Mandate. Even though the mandate specifically stated that no one should be excluded from living anywhere in the mandate because of their religion (Article 15) even if the area east of the Jordan River was split off into a distinct territory (Article 25), that was precisely what Jordan did, banning Jews from living there.
In 1948, Jordan attacked Israel in a war that went on for over a year. At war’s end, Jordan seized additional territory and expelled all Jews from the land that it went on to annex in 1950. In 1954, Jordan granted “any person who, not being Jewish” (Article 3) in the illegally seized lands Jordanian citizenship, in a blatantly anti-Semitic edict.
Jordan attacked Israel again in 1967 in support of Egypt and Syria which had bound together to try to destroy the Jewish State once again. Fortunately, that time, their plans against Israel failed.
From the British
After Palestinian Arabs killed dozens of Jews in their homes and synagogues in the city of Hebron in 1929, the British “evacuated” (read expelled) all of the remaining Jews from the city, considering that their lives were in jeopardy from Arab mobs. Rather than defend the Jews and punish the Arabs, the British punished the Jewish victims, teaching the local Arabs the valuable lesson which they would employ over the next hundred years – terrorism pays, and will get the Jews to leave the places where they were living peacefully.
In November 1938, as Kristallnacht was effectively launching the Holocaust in Europe, the British leaders in Palestine met with local Arabs to decide to limit Jewish immigration to just 75,000 people over the next five years. Britain slammed the door on millions of Jews running for their lives facilitating the genocide of European Jewry.
Malcolm MacDonald, the British Colonial Secretary said after Kristallnacht: “When we promised to facilitate the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine, we never anticipated this fierce persecution in Europe. We have made no promise that that country should be the home for everyone who is seeking to escape from such an immense calamity, and even if there were no other population in Palestine, its rather meager soil could not in fact support more than a fraction of those Jews who may wish to escape from Europe. The problem of the refugees in Central Europe cannot be settled in Palestine.“
From the United Nations
The UN has evolved into a blatantly anti-Israel organization. It was headed by a former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, from 1972 to 1981, when the General Assembly passed the infamous Resolution 3379 declaring Zionism is a form of racism. The UN has members which openly call for the destruction of Israel, another member, to a chorus of silence.
The UN Human Rights Council reserves item 7 on its agenda every session to lambast Israel. The Secretary General appointed a special coordinator for Mideast Peace who has a long history and particular loyalties only to Palestinians. The global body prioritizes the stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) over actual refugees fleeing wars to faraway lands, donating billions of dollars into a specialized agency, UNRWA, which has a history of teaching anti-Semitism and being a harbor for Arab terrorists. It encourages the SAPs that the United Nations is the pathway to grandparents’ homes in Israel.
Entrance to UNRWA “refugee camp” in Bethlehem with key and keyhole, representing the agency as the pathway for Arabs to ultimately enter Israel.
From the United States
While the USA has long been Israel’s greatest supporter, the Obama Administration put Israel at greater risk on the world stage. It allowed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass which made it illegal for Jews (the law says Israelis, but no one considers an Israeli Arab) to live in Judea and Samaria. This was despite assurances from President Bush that with Israel’s leaving Gaza, there would be US support for staying in such lands. Obama also negotiated the Iranian nuclear deal, the JCPOA, which gave Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which had called for Israel’s destruction, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons in ten years.
Jews moved to Palestine at a rate of over 6 times the rate of Muslims BEFORE the Balfour Declaration (and at a similar rate afterwards), but the narrative of Abbas and the Arab League is that the British created the very desire and notion for Jews to move to Arab land, when in fact the British PREVENTED Jews from settling the land. Perhaps it is time for the Jewish State to demand its apologies.
Jewish population growth during the last 100+ years of Ottoman rule was 13.4 times, 6.4x the rate of Muslim growth which was only 2.1 times between 1800 and 1914 (Muslims did not move to Palestine – 2.1x growth in 114 years is the natural rate of births minus deaths). Jewish growth over the last 100+ years of British and Jewish rule has been 6.9x the rate of Muslims, roughly the same as the prior century. As Jews moved to the region in yet greater numbers, Muslims decided to come as well.
Heinrich Himmler, the head of Nazi Germany’s infamous SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads), was responsible for conceiving and overseeing implementation of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
When Himmler took over the SS in 1929, it had just 280 people. By the time the Nazis were voted into power in 1933, it had 52,000. Over the next few years, Himmler fused the SS with other “security” organizations like the Gestapo in 1939, empowering him to execute his vision of “racial purity” and extermination of the Jews.
When the Nazis took over Poland in 1939 and later the Soviet Union, Himmler’s power expanded into the new territories. He dispatched Einsatzgruppen, essentially mobile killing units who targeted Jews and Roma for annihilation. To achieve his goal of the complete eradication of these untermenschen, Himmler oversaw a vast concentration camp system.
Himmler’s enormous hatred for Jews extended beyond his direct reach. He held meetings with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had already met with Adolf Hitler in 1941, professing natural loyalty to Nazi Germany as they had a common enemy in the British and the Jews. Hitler was taken by the Palestinian Arab’s anti-Semitism, saying that Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews, that naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests.
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini with Nazi leader Heinirich Himmler
On November 2, 1943, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Himmler sent his fellow anti-Semite a telegram wishing him a “great victory” in his battle against the Jews.
Telegram from Heinrich Himmler to Grand Mufti on November 2, 1943
In 1945, Nazi Germany was defeated and Hitler and Himmler died, but the sick hatred for Jews did not disappear.
The orphaned Jews of Europe came to Palestine to join fellow Jews in trying to start a new life but were confronted by Arabs which sought to annihilate the survivors. In every decade the local and regional Arabs launched wars against the Jewish State, killing whomever they could, refusing to recognize its existence.
Eighty years ago, the Nazis were the “standard-bearer in the battle against world Jewry” who appreciated “the battle of freedom-seeking Arabs, particularly in Palestine, against the Jewish invaders.” Today, it is a disparate collection of organized and disorganized alt-left and alt-right anti-Semites who rally to the new standard-bearer against world Jewry, Palestinian Arabs.
One of Israel’s leading critics in congress is Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) who uses the battering ram of “defending Palestinian children” to portray Israel as an offensive abuser of human rights. The foundation of her view of Israel is her belief that Israel has stolen land belonging to Arabs.
While McCollum didn’t utter a word about Hamas’s barrage of missiles against Israeli civilians in the summer of 2014, nor the killing of three Israeli teenagers which sparked the war, nor the Hamas Charter which blames Jews for all the world’s ills thus marking them for death, she did begin to find her voice regarding her view of the region a year later. In 2015, she berated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for opposing the Iranian nuclear plan, and in 2016, she admonished Israelis living in Area C of the West Bank. She then applauded the Obama Administration’s decision to allow UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass, making those Israeli homes illegal. On January 9, 2017 she offered the following:
“[telling hard truths] is particularly true when it comes to the issue of illegal Israeli settlement expansion. This policy is one of the most serious obstacles to achieving a two-state solution, the only viable avenue to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It has long been the bipartisan policy of U.S. administrations to oppose settlement expansion on land belonging to Palestinians before the 1967 war precisely because these settlements diminish the prospects of reaching a two-state solution and are not essential to Israel’s security.“
The quote above is full of factual inaccuracies, inane predictions and false beliefs. They each deserve to be unpacked as McCollum is likely not alone in these feelings.
“land belonging to Palestinians before the 1967 war”
This statement is full of problems:
No sovereign Palestine. The land was not “Palestinian” as there was no “Palestine” before the 1967 war. The area commonly called the “West Bank” was annexed by Jordan in 1950. All of those “Palestinians” received Jordanian citizenship in 1954, as long as they weren’t Jewish (clause 3 spelled that anti-Semitic dynamic clearly). It is only because of the Oslo Accord signed by the newly created Palestinian Authority and Israel that there is some self-rule by Palestinians today. Roughly 86% of West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B under Palestinian control and 100% of the Arabs in Gaza live under Palestinian control. There are about 14% of West Bank Arabs living in Area C under Israeli control – all post the Oslo Accords of the 1990’s.
The dividing line was never a border. When the Jordanians and Israelis reached a ceasefire at the end of the 1948-9 war, the frontier for the “land belonging to Palestinians” was defined by the 1949 Armistice Lines. The ceasefire agreement specifically stated that the line is “without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines,” meaning that they were never considered to be a border. Therefore, not only was the land up to the 1949 Armistice Line not under Palestinian sovereignty, the border was never defined. A final resolution could be just half of the area thought of as the West Bank, or the border configuration put forward under President Trump.
Individual ownership then and now. As described above, the land was not under the sovereignty of Palestine in 1967 but there were individual Arabs who owned land. Arabs owned and continue to own property in Israel too. Arabs under Palestinian rule today, and the 14% of Arabs who live in Area C also owned and continue to own homes. That hasn’t changed, but Jews who had owned land in the “West Bank” and eastern Jerusalem before 1967 had it seized by the Jordanians, so Jewish property now appears as something novel. Jews and Arabs each own property on an individual basis in both Israel and the West Bank, and property rights have remained intact, as long as people are able to show valid documents.
International law prohibits banning people based on religion. When the League of Nations gave the British the Mandate for Palestine which was a single territorial unit but now considered to be Gaza, Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, Article 15 specifically stated that “No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.” The idea that UNSC Resolution 2334 can call an Israeli Jew living in Area C as “illegal” but can call an Israeli Arab living in Jerusalem as legal is a violation of human rights, international law and blatantly anti-Semitic.
International law encouraged Jewish immigration throughout Palestine. Article 6 in the same Palestine Mandate called for Britain to “facilitate Jewish immigration… and… close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” International law considered the land not privately owned by Arabs to be designated for Jewish purposes.
When McCollum discusses “land belonging to Palestinians” she might be talking about individual Arab property which was and remains the same before and after Jordan attacked Israel in June 1967. But by adding the clause “before the 1967 war,” McCollum is seemingly implying that there was Palestinian sovereignty over discrete land with defined borders. There is absolutely no truth for any such characterization.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) attacks Israel regularly with fabrications and innuendoes. (photo:by Preston Keres)
Rep. Betty McCollum’s entire basis for approaching the Arab-Israel Conflict is incorrect, illogical and based on a Palestinian narrative that rejects coexistence with Jews.
Israeli “settlement expansion” was legal as described above, UNTIL the passage of UNSC Resolution 2334 in December 2016. McCollum used twisted logic to defend enabling the passage of a law labeling Israeli homes as illegal by saying that they were illegal. But they weren’t illegal before the resolution! One can use similar logic by passing a law that makes owning a gun illegal and then defending the law by saying of course it’s illegal because it’s illegal! The fact is it was legal before the new law’s passage.
“most serious obstacles”
McCollum stated that Jewish families living in a section of the West Bank is one of the “most serious obstacles” to peace. More than Arab terrorism and incitement to murder. More than rampant Palestinian anti-Semitism. More than the Arab belief that Jews have no rights or connection or history living in the land.
To believe such nonsense, one must have adopted the Palestinian narrative whole OR simply want to grant the Palestinians their wish to have a country devoid of any Jews.
I will agree that Jews living in Judea and Samaria are an obstacle to a particular formulation of a two state solution – one preferred by Palestinians and others who want to limit where Jews can live. But that formulation is inherently anti-Semitic and a pathway to ensure that there will never be an enduring peace.
“not essential to Israel’s security”
A congresswoman from the United States told a country which is 444 times smaller than it, which has three times as many neighbors – several of which have refused to acknowledge its existence and have been in a constant state of war – that it has a good handle on what is and is not essential for the small country’s security.
No country in the world puts its capital city nor its largest city on a border, let alone with a neighbor which has constantly fought against its fundamental existence. If McCollum was truly concerned about Israel’s security, she would endorse Israel’s annexation of the area known as E1 east of Jerusalem all of the way to Maale Adumim, rather than state that Israel should divide its capital and largest city in two.
Rep. McCollum’s basis for approaching the Arab-Israel conflict is incorrect and illogical. It is perhaps not surprising that she tries to advance “soft” resolutions about protecting Palestinian children, hoping to avoid discussing her dangerous and false anti-Israel narrative.
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