Tag Archives: anti-Israel

Martin Luther King and Zionism

Posted on by
6

Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the rights of the black minority in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. His passionate words inspired many people to move for equal rights for all Americans.

As the last MLK Day of the first Black US President is celebrated, and in the aftermath of this administration’s abandonment of Israel, it is worth reviewing MLK’s comments specifically about Israel, and those which underscore his philosophy about Israel.

Martin Luther King on Israel (Direct Quotes)

Here is a selection of MLK quotes specifically about the Jewish State:

“The whole world must see that Israel must exist, Israel has a right to exist, and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.”

“Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.”

“Israel’s right to exist as a state in security is incontestable.”

“When people criticize Zionists they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism,”

Below is a selection of 20 other famous quotes of MLK, applied to Israel.

Reestablishing the Jewish Homeland

“I have a dream.”

The famous line was taken from a speech given by MLK on August 28, 1963. That speech was a declaration that the promise of freedom that was given to blacks by President Abraham Lincoln 100 years earlier in 1863 was still not realized. “Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds,”” he continued.

In 2017, 100 years after the Balfour Declaration in 1917 recognized the right of Jews to reestablish their homeland in Palestine, President Obama said that the Jewish State could only be reestablished on a sliver of their homeland, and Jews living outside those bounds was illegal. Many Zionists have repeated the words of MLK to Obama today, that the tacit endorsement of United Nations Resolution 2334 was wrong; a bounced check marked “insufficient funds.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

Theodore Herzl advanced modern Zionism when he wrote the book “The Jewish State” in 1896. He believed that “If you will it, it is no dream;” that Jews could actively participate in moving to Israel and reestablish Jewish sovereignty in the land. Jews were already a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860s, and had moved to Palestine in greater numbers than any other religion throughout the 1800s. But Herzl instilled the belief that sovereignty – Jewish self-determination in their homeland – was a possibility in modern times.

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

While international law established the right of a Jewish homeland in Palestine in the San Remo Agreement of 1920 and the Palestine Mandate in 1922, the nations of the world did not recognize the independent Jewish State until 1948-9. Some people have argued that Israel was created BECAUSE of the Holocaust, that bleak “starless midnight of racism and war.” The truth is that the world recognized the right of Jews to reestablish their homeland decades earlier, before the Nazis even rose to power.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”

The endorsements of a Jewish homeland in 1920 and 1922 was met with riots and pogroms in Israel. Arab riots in the 1920s killed dozens of Jews. The mini-Arab war against the Jews in 1936-9 killed thousands, and made the British administrators institute a ceiling on Jewish immigration to Palestine – on the eve of the Holocaust – an action that allowed thousands of Jews to die in Europe. Wars and terrorism from Arab forces have continued to kill Jews in Israel. But the Jewish State never gives up hope of living in peace.

“We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

The Israeli people are a diverse people. Mizrachi Jews account for the majority, who came from Arab lands including Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt between 1948 and the 1960s. Many Jews left Argentina after the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in 1984, and Israel absorbed thousands of Jews from Ethiopia and Russia during the 1990s. While people think of the Ashkenazim of Europe being the dominant presence in the country, they are actually a minority.

Efforts at Peace and Coexistence

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

When Israel declared its independence in May 1948, it gave citizenship to everyone living in the land, Jews and non-Jews alike. This was in sharp contrast to the Jordanian Arabs who expelled all Jews from lands that they seized in the 1948-9 war in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. The Jordanians gave all of the Arabs in the region Jordanian citizenship and explicitly EXCLUDED JEWS from obtaining citizenship. At this time, the other Arab and Muslim countries began to force 1 million Jews to flee their homes.

In 1967, after the Arab countries tried to destroy Israel again, Israel asked for peace, but the Arab world declared in Khartoum “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.”

Israeli statesman Shimon Peres made an observation similar to MLK about the persistent Arab terrorism in Israel when he said in June 2014 “you cannot put fire and water in the same glass. Hamas is clearly not a partner for peace…. Finding a way forward is hard but we must not lose hope.” Israel continues to extend a hand of peace and coexistence to its Arab neighbors and hopes that one day, the dream of peace will be reciprocated.

“It is not enough to say we must not wage war. It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”

Israel took significant steps towards peace with its neighbors, sacrificing territory that it took when Arab countries sought to destroy Israel.  In 1982, Israel removed all Jews from the Sinai peninsula and handed the land to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty. In 1996, as part of the Oslo Agreements, Israel gave control of many cities in Judea and Samaria/ the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority, in the hopes of establishing peace. The Israelis discussed giving back almost all of the Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for peace, as detailed in Dennis Ross’s book, The Missing Peace. And in 2005, Israel withdrew all Israeli soldiers and civilians from Gaza in the hopes of achieving peace.

We have yet to see many Arabs sacrifice for peace willfully, such as admitting the rights of Jews to live throughout the region, facilitating their access to their holiest site on the Jewish Temple Mount and recognizing the Jewish State itself.

Love and Kindness

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

Israel has been at the forefront of helping out countries of the world faced with natural disasters. Whether in Haiti or Turkey, Japan or Indonesia, Israel helps countries that do not even recognize it.  Consider that Israel even helped people injured in the civil war in Syria next door, even though the two countries are technically at war.

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

Israeli officials often call out the barbarity that exists around the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. The murderous regimes that extinguish freedoms make Israel a lonely island of democracy and liberal attitudes. But for its efforts of calling out evil, Israel just gets more world condemnation, as it is mocked for progressive attitudes with terms like “pinkwashing.” No matter. Israel will continue to lead by example and call out its neighbors.

Israel and Greatness

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

Jews may only a fraction of the global body, but they account for an enormous percentage of the Nobel Prizes for Chemistry, Medicine and Physics. Similarly, the Jewish State has more Nobel Prize winners than the African continent and entire Arabian peninsula combined.

“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”

Israel has been named the “Start Up Nation” because of the remarkable number of entrepreneurs that have created successful start up companies.  Despite its small size, lack of natural resources and unfriendly neighbors, the country has managed to create break-through hardware and software companies with products that are incorporated into almost every successful technology today.

Israel and Arab Neighbors

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

At the moment of Israel’s declaration of statehood, it opened its arms to Arabs both in its midst and those at its borders. In the very text of the declaration on May 14, 1948 it stated: “WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions. WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.” It is an effort that Israel still continues to advance today.

“The principle of self defense, even involving weapons and bloodshed, has never been condemned, even by Gandhi.”

While Israel attempts to achieve a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, it will always have the security of its land and people as a primary concern. When rockets flew from Gaza, Israel responded by launching an operation to stop the attacks. When suicide bombers infiltrated the country from Arab towns in Judea and Samaria, the country built a security barrier.

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

Israel has attempted to advance peace with Palestinian Arabs on the basis of peaceful coexistence. It gave full rights of citizenship to Arabs living in Israel in 1948, and has allowed Arabs living in the eastern part of Jerusalem which Israel reunited in 1967, the right to apply for citizenship. In contrast, the Arabs have made no attempt to advance peace, but have only focused on a complete separation from Israel. Some Palestinian Arabs that are viewed as “moderates” seek a state just in Gaza and the West Bank. Other Arabs seek to destroy Israel completely.

Peace will only come to the region when peace is a means and an ends, not just a potential byproduct of maneuvers and declarations.

Israel and the United Nations

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

The United Nations has made a name for itself in its rampant anti-Semitism. Efforts have ranged from Having a former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, run the UN for years, to resolutions declaring that “Zionism is racism.”

In 2015 and 2016, the UN advanced and approved resolutions that removed any connection of Judaism from Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple Mount. The efforts are part of a long-standing Arab complaint that Israel is trying to “Judaize” its holiest city, despite Jews’ 3000-year history in the city.

MLK said it best, that nothing is more dangerous than conscientious stupidity.

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

Several European countries have tried to advance a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. However, in doing so, they have compounded the problem and made chances for peace more remote.

Removing Hamas from a list of terrorist entities enables terrorism and parties that oppose any peace with Israel. Labeling products from Judea and Samaria with distinct labels pushes away opportunities for coexistence. Condemning Jews living across from Armistice Lines that were specifically never designated as borders is illogical and harms negotiations. Advancing peace forums without the presence of Israelis makes the possibility of direct negotiations more remote.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the General Assembly at the United Nations in October 2015 to rebuke the countries of the world for their “utter silence, deafening silence” in condemning Iran for its pledge to destroy Israel. President Obama called US Ambassador Samantha Power out of the room so she missed Netanyahu’s speech. Silence compounded: the refusal to speak and the refusal to hear.

Israel and the United States Under Obama

“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.”

As noted above, Barack Obama pulled his people out of the UN General Assembly so they would not hear the Israeli Prime Minister’s speech. It was not the only time he would snub Israel.

Obama made a point of reaching out to the Arab and Muslim world as soon as he began his presidency. He made his first public trip to Turkey where he pitched “common ground.” He traveled to Cairo, Egypt, where he made his “new beginnings” appeal. He would stop by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And skip Israel.

When Obama did make it to Israel four years later, he declined an invitation to speak to the Israeli Knesset, and instead opted to use that time to speak to college students, snubbing the only democracy in the Middle East.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

By early 2015, the contours of the Iran nuclear deal were taking shape, very much to the dislike of Israel, Saudi Arabia and other American allies. As the Iranian government made clear its interest in destroying Israel, Netanyahu sought to take aggressive steps to improve upon the deal. He accepted an invitation to address a joint session of Congress, but Obama had 58 Democratic loyalists in Congress boycott the speech.

Beyond snubbing Israel in Jerusalem and Washington DC, and standing by idly when the United Nations Security Council lambasted Israel, the Obama administration never had the courage to state that it supported Israel as it confronted dozens of terrorist attacks. Those sentiments were reserved for other countries. And for Palestinian Arabs.

The twentieth quote summarizes the life of Martin Luther King: “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” It is a mantra he lived as a civil rights leader fighting for a minority group to achieve common rights and freedoms.

It is a cause that the Jewish people and the Jewish State understand full well.

Related First.One.Through articles:

A Native American, An African American and a Hispanic American walk into Israel…

“Jews as a Class”

The Selfishness, Morality and Effectiveness of Defending Others

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

Black Lives Matter Joins the anti-Israel “Progressives” Fighting Zionism

Seeing Security through a Screen

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

MLK

 

 

Your Father’s Anti-Semitism

Posted on by
27

Over the past eight years, we became convinced that anti-Semitism no longer existed, and are now astounded at its re-emergence. Why?

What We Were Led to Believe

The Obama administration informed Americans that anti-Semitism in the United States was no longer a major issue under his watch. The real hatred that the country needed to confront was the targeting of Muslims and immigrants, not Jews.

The American media reported that anti-Semitism in Europe was barely perceptible. The real issue there was the persecution of refugees.

Jewish leaders and Israeli officials explained that the Jewish State of Israel assumed the role of the World Jew, and attacks on Israel were the new socially-accepted form of anti-Semitism. So when the political left educated everyone that criticizing Israel on the world stage was something that friends do – not anti-Semites – it was obviously a tremendous relief.

There was clearly no more anti-Semitism remaining in the world.

But suddenly, as the sun set on the Obama ride, the old hatred suddenly appeared again. Not surprisingly, the left-wing told us it was all related to the rise of Donald Trump.

Anti-Semitic incidents jumped in the days after the election, mostly from vandalism. The most vocal and visible display of Jew-hatred will happen next week, as the small town of Whitefish, Montana hosts a march by armed white supremists on January 15.  The organizer is a vocal supporter of Trump, cementing the pairing that Trump and his supporters are anti-Semites (or “deplorables” according to Hillary Clinton).

And so we are led to believe that the anti-Semitism which was supposedly vanquished under the Obama years, is rearing its vile head as Trump assumes the presidency.

Reality

That narrative is not reality. Anti-semitism has always been present in the US and Europe, but simply ignored. Some of the hatred now being seen in America is simply more public and overt. It’s your father’s anti-Semitism. Old School Jew-hatred.

Over the eight years of Obama’s presidency, an average Jew in the USA was statistically twice as likely to face a hate crime as an average black or Muslim person. Obama just chose to not discuss it, and the media sought to distract attention away from it.

In Europe, the year 2014 saw waves of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel riots and actions, even as Israel tried to broker a peace deal with the Palestinian Arabs. However, the media tried to downplay the Jew-hatred. Obama refused to even acknowledge it.

As for the Nazi marches, they are not new in America. They marched in Obama’s home state of Illinois in 1977, when Democrat Jimmy Carter was president. And Bill Clinton was president when anti-Semitism came through Montana in December 1993.

brenner-montana
Frederic Brenner’s photograph of protestors in Billings, Montana
January 1994

During Chanuka 1993 in Billings, Montana, someone threw a brick through the window of a Jewish home that had placed a menorah in the window. The people of the town responded to the vandalism by cutting out paper menorahs which thousands of people pasted in the windows of their homes and stores as a common call to combat hate. The hatred did not go away, and more windows displaying menorahs were broken by rocks and bullets. But the silent protest continued. The photographer Frederic Brenner took the iconic photograph above of the townspeople of Billings hoisting menorahs, as featured in his incredible work, Diaspora.

Message

Obama focused his presidency on repairing America’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim world and deliberately chose to not focus on the more common anti-Semitism that has always pervaded society.  The liberal press followed his lead and lulled people into a false sense that anti-Semitism didn’t live here anymore. Believing themselves beyond anti-Semitism, the liberal art scene celebrated Arab terrorists that killed an elderly handicapped Jew as “a masterpiece.” In the smug shroud of self-righteousness, liberals couldn’t conceive that such actions and statements were the embodiment of anti-Semitism.

It is against this backdrop that people consider the “alt-right” and Nazi marches. Something completely alien and faraway.

It is false perspective.

Frederic Brenner’s “Diaspora: homelands in exile,” included a second book called “voices” which included commentary of many writers, historians and philosophers about Brenner’s photographs. Here are condensed reflections from two people on the Billings, MT photo:

“There, at the crossroads in the barren landscape of Montana, the citizens of Billings are brought together…. The menorah is a mark of Jewish difference. By everyone adopting a menorah on this occasion, this difference no longer distinguishes Jews from others…. We cannot hear the music, but “America the Beautiful” blares from the loudspeakers that the photographer brought to the shoot…. In this photograph, which has been shot through a glass pierced by a bullet, the citizens of Billings mass to a vanishing point marked by the bull’s-eye of violence.”

-Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

“Never forget; never forget to see that through which you see, the apparently diaphanous element of visibility. Here that element is broken. The photograph is taken through the broken glass of a window. There is always the risk of not seeing the medium through which a view is taken. Here the medium that risks passing unnoticed, being simply omitted from the description, is the signature or the wound, not to say the scar, of an event: the breaking of glass…. The menorahs they are holding high, the seven- or eightbrached candelabrum (and not the star of David) recalls a particular event, a local violence: the brick thrown from the street through a window, December 2, 1993, against a symbol of Jewish faith. Is not the photo taken from the point of view of this window, through the broken glass itself? From the place of violation?”

-Jacques Derrida

These writers observe the protesters of Montana, calling for unity in the face of anti-Semitism. But they note the importance of the photograph itself, that it is taken through the broken glass that was the violence. It placed the viewer squarely in “the place of violation,” not as a casual observer.

And we have lost that.

In the effort to reach out to Muslims, America sanitized its anti-Semitism. Americans have now been trained to only recognize the most outrageous Jew-hatred – something foreign and obscene – as if from a different place and generation. In doing so, Americans watch the violence as voyeurs, not as engaged participants. Protests come in mumbles, not in screams. The expressions lack empathy.

Jacques Derrida continued about the photograph of the protest against Jew-hatred a generation ago: “in the background, one can see the American flag. The large star-spangled banner recalls at once the vocation of the witness (multiethnic, multicultural, etc.) of a nation that, despite the racisms and anti-Semitism that have continued to disfigure its history, takes over from the chosen people and inscribes freedom of religion and opinion in its Constitution.” America’s promise for religious freedom is actualized by Americans that take the responsibility upon themselves. And they do it the face of – and in the place of – the violence itself.

Can America truly protest in common cause with Jews when it doesn’t recognize the violence and anti-Semitism prevelant in society? After the last eight years of willful deceit, it is more likely that people will protest the president-elect and his supporters, than the anti-Semitism that they themselves have chosen to ignore.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Selfishness, Morality and Effectiveness of Defending Others

Stopping the Purveyors of Hateful Propaganda

Leading Gay Activists Hate Religious Children

“Jews as a Class”

Obama’s Select Religious Compassion

Ramifications of Ignoring American Antisemitism

The “Unclean” Jew in the Crosshairs

New York Times Finds Racism When it Wants

The End of Together

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

Rep. Keith Ellison Refuses to Condemn UN Resolution Aganist Israel

Posted on by
1

The Obama Administration let a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel (Res 2334) pass in December 2016 to the anger of many Americans.  The US Congress took it upon itself on January 5, 2017, to condemn the UN action as a bipartisan effort, voting to condemn it by a margin of 342 to 80 (with 4 people voting Present and 7 abstentions). A total of 233 Republicans and 109 Democrats stood by the US’s ally in a bill entitled “Objecting to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 as an obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace, and for other purposes.” Of the 80 people voting against the measure, 76 were Democrats to only 4 Republicans.

Before the vote, two leading Republicans, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (CA-23) and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (CA-39) released the following statement:

“This Administration has lost all credibility when it comes to Israel. The Administration’s stunt at the UN hurt our ally Israel and made peace in the region even more difficult to achieve. This Thursday, the House will not abstain from its responsibility and will vote on a bipartisan resolution reaffirming our longstanding policy in the region and support of Israel.”

While Republicans voted to condemn the UN vote by a margin of 233-to-4, the Democrats barely achieved a majority of consensus, voting 109-to-76, with 8 others not voting at all.

Rep. Keith Ellison, who is running to be the new chair of the Democratic National Committee (with the support of Sen. Bernie Sanders) was one of those Democrats that decided to vote against the effort to condemn the UN censure of Israel.

keith-ellison-end-the-occupation-podium

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN)

Ellison’s action was not a surprise to many.

Ellison was one of the 50 House Democrats to boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress in 2015. A big Democratic supporter, Haim Saban said recently that Ellison “is clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual.” But leading Jewish Democrats in the Senate like Charles Schumer and Bernie Sanders have still rallied to Ellison’s defense and continue to support his candidacy.

If this is how Ellison votes when Americans are focused on him and his bona fides, how will he treat Israel in the future? Will he continue to turn Democrats against Israel? Will he support more actions at the United Nations to condemn the leading democracy of the entire Middle East?

If Ellison becomes the new chair of the DNC, it will be the final straw for this lifelong Democrat.

Related First.One.Through articles:

International-Domestic Abuse: Obama and Netanyahu

The Invisible Anti-Semitism in Obama’s 2016 State of the Union

Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

Sanders Accuses Israel of Deliberately Killing Palestinians

Missing Netanyahu’s Speech: Those not Listening and Those Not Speaking

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

The Many Lies of Jimmy Carter

Posted on by
24

It is not particularly surprising that Jimmy Carter, former US president and author of “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid,” chose to commemorate the UN’s official Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (November 29), to launch another attack on Israel. Carter did this through lies and half-truths in a New York Times Op-Ed (printed below).

Here are some lying lowlights:

Lie: Israel cannot take control of any of the “West Bank” which it seized during a war. Carter wrote that Israel and Egypt concluded a peace deal because it was based on UN resolution 242 which included the clause “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” The peace agreement with Egypt has nothing to do with the Palestinian Arabs.

  • The “West Bank” was taken during a DEFENSIVE war. While it is a matter of debate whether Israel’s 1967 preemptive attack on Egypt which was ready to attack Israel was offensive or defensive, there is no debate that the Jordanians (and Palestinian Arabs who had taken Jordanian citizenship) attacked Israel first. The laws about the inadmissibility of taking land have to do with a “belligerent party,” not the defensive party.
  • The international community recognizes Israel’s taking land in a defensive war. After the Arab armies attacked Israel in 1948-9, Israel seized much more land than was granted to it under UN Resolution 181, known as the 1947 Partition Plan. The dynamic of taking more of the “West Bank” in yet another defensive war follows the same principle.
  • The Sinai peninsula was never part of the Palestine Mandate.  Israel returned land to Egypt that it took in the 1967 war, land that was never part of the Palestine Mandate which sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland. However, the “West Bank” is part-and-parcel of the Palestine Mandate, just as the land west of the 1949 Green Line was part of the Jewish homeland.

Lie: The Palestinians seek “a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every state in the area can live in security.” Carter continued to recite language from UN resolution 242, but failed to connect Palestinians to the clause.

  • The Palestinian Arabs have voted for war, not peace. The Palestinian Arabs voted Hamas, a recognized terrorist group that seeks the destruction of Israel, to 58% of the parliament in 2006. Palestinian polls show Palestinian Arabs favoring the group in every poll. This is a group that has the most anti-Semitic charter in the world, which specifically calls for killing Jews and destroying all of Israel. The Hamas leadership continues to incite violence against Israelis.

Lie: Carter implied that “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” meant withdrawal from the West Bank. It does not.

  • A withdrawal from “territories” but not “all of the territories.”  The language in the UN resolution was approved with specific amendments in the final text. It specifically did not call for Israel to remove troops from all of the new lands, as the 1949 Armistice Agreements with Egypt and with Jordan specifically stated that the Armistice Lines / the Green Line was NOT to be considered a new border.

Lie: Carter stated that Jewish homes in the West Bank were “constructed illegally by Israel on Palestinian territory.” Carter has adopted the anti-Israel United Nations language in describing “settlements” as illegal. He might as well also state that “Zionism is racism,” as stated in UN Resolution 3379 which was passed in 1975 under his watch.

  • Jews living throughout the West Bank is LEGAL. International law in 1920 (San Remo Agreement) and 1922 (Mandate of Palestine) specifically stated that Jewish immigration was to be encouraged throughout Palestine and that “No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief” (Mandate Article 15). You cannot bar Jews from living in the West Bank as a matter of moral and legal principle.

Lie: Carter wrote that Obama declared that the border between Israel and Palestine “should be based on the 1967 lines.”   This is a half-truth that is a complete lie.

  • Obama stated that borders should be negotiated between the two parties and include land swaps to account for current realities. Carter deliberately misled his liberal fans and Israel-bashers by only using half of Obama’s suggested course to peace. Obama stated that the borders would NOT look like the 1967 borders, but Carter piecemealed Obama’s quote into a distortion, a lie.  It should be further noted that Obama’s language was much softer than the assurances that President George W. Bush gave Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004 that “it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.”

Lie: Carter implied that the Israelis’ “commitment to peace is in danger of abrogation,” and said nothing about Palestinian Arabs lack of desire for peace.

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated repeatedly he seeks to commence negotiations immediately to resolve the conflict. It is Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas that refuses to engage with Israel. It is Mahmoud Abbas that incites terror against Israelis and seeks to deny Jewish rights and history in Jerusalem. Only Israeli leadership has declared the goal of two states for two peoples, while Abbas has called for an Arab state of Palestine devoid of Jews, and Israel, which should be a bi-national state.

Lie: Carter calls all of the West Bank “Palestinian Land,” which are “occupied.”

  • The West Bank includes “Palestinian Authority territory” which is administered by the PA, and Israeli territory, administered by Israel – according to the Oslo Accords, agreed to by both parties. The Oslo I and Oslo II Accords signed in 1993 and 1995 by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority handed over certain lands to the PA. Those areas, known as Area A, are where the vast majority of Arabs in the West Bank live. They are not under Israeli military control. Area C, which is under Israeli military control, is where the vast majority of Israelis live in the West Bank, and include a minimal number of Arabs.

Lie: Carter claims that the world condemns Israel since Arabs east of the Green Line cannot vote, while Israeli Jews living in EGL can. That is wild distortion of reality.

  • Arabs in Jerusalem can become citizens and vote in Israeli elections. Israel reunited the city of Jerusalem in 1967, and expanded the borders of the city in 1980. Israel gave ALL people living in the city the option to become Israeli citizens, just as the other million-plus non-Jews in Israel enjoy Israeli citizenship. Thousands of Arabs from Jerusalem have become citizens of Israel.
  • People in territories around the world don’t vote. Puerto Ricans, Guam and other US territories, are not eligible to vote in US elections. Does the world condemn the US for this structure? No. Citizens are entitled to vote – regardless of where they live. An American living in Germany for 20 years still gets to vote in US elections, while a Puerto Rican will not. Similar for Israeli citizens that opt to live in EGL/ the West Bank.

Lie: Carter calls the Palestinian Authority a “moderate Palestinian leadership.”

After laying out a package of outright lies and half-truths, Carter calls on President Obama to act quickly and: 1) recognize a Palestinian State; and 2) passing a UN Security Council Resolution that all Israeli “settlements” are illegal.  He added “Recognition of Palestine and a new Security Council resolution are not radical new measures, but a natural outgrowth of America’s support for a two-state solution.”

It is beyond “radical.” It is wrong and dangerous.

To this day, Carter remains the only US president to call Israelis living in EGL/West Bank “illegal.” Obama, Bush and others used terms like “illegitimate” (Obama) or “unhelpful” (Bush) or even an “obstacle to peace,” but no other president claimed that settlements in disputed territory are “illegal.” Such a declaration is radical, and the left-wing extremist was the only president to use such terminology.

Further, recognizing a Palestinian State completely ends the Oslo Accords and a negotiated solution. It doesn’t “restart” talks, but puts both parties on the course for unilateral actions, such as annexation of additional lands. It will most likely lead to war.

Carter (like the anti-Israel UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon) has urged Hamas and Fatah to reconcile. They seek to insert a genocidal Nazi party into the Palestinian government as a pathway to peace. These are the same people that recommend these two radical actions.

While Carter and Ban are correct in recognizing that it is unsustainable to have a Palestinian state with distinct governments controlling different parts of the country, that just underscores why there cannot be recognition of a Palestinian state today. It doesn’t mean rewarding a dysfunctional and anti-Semitic government with recognition.

 20161130_070230
Jimmy Carter New York Times Op-Ed November 29, 2016

Seeing Jimmy Carter write again is a reminder of the far left fringe’s inability to see or grasp the truth of the Middle East.  Carter’s adoration of Hamas, underlines his insanity. He imagines and hopes for a world that doesn’t exist, and makes suggestions that are dangerous for civil society.

Here is Carter’s Op-Ed of lies in full. The boldface is meant as reference for the notes above.

ATLANTA — We do not yet know the policy of the next administration toward Israel and Palestine, but we do know the policy of this administration. It has been President Obama’s aim to support a negotiated end to the conflict based on two states, living side by side in peace.

That prospect is now in grave doubt. I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short. The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine, as 137 countries have already done, and help it achieve full United Nations membership.

Back in 1978, during my administration, Israel’s prime minister, Menachem Begin, and Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, signed the Camp David Accords. That agreement was based on the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which was passed in the aftermath of the 1967 war. The key words of that resolution were “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in the Middle East in which every state in the area can live in security,” and the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

The agreement was ratified overwhelmingly by the Parliaments of Egypt and Israel. And those two foundational concepts have been the basis for the policy of the United States government and the international community ever since.

This was why, in 2009, at the beginning of his first administration, Mr. Obama reaffirmed the crucial elements of the Camp David agreement and Resolution 242 by calling for a complete freeze on the building of settlements, constructed illegally by Israel on Palestinian territory. Later, in 2011, the president made clear that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines,” and added, “negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine.”

Today, however, 38 years after Camp David, the commitment to peace is in danger of abrogation. Israel is building more and more settlements, displacing Palestinians and entrenching its occupation of Palestinian lands. Over 4.5 million Palestinians live in these occupied territories, but are not citizens of Israel. Most live largely under Israeli military rule, and do not vote in Israel’s national elections.

Meanwhile, about 600,000 Israeli settlers in Palestine enjoy the benefits of Israeli citizenship and laws. This process is hastening a one-state reality that could destroy Israeli democracy and will result in intensifying international condemnation of Israel.

The Carter Center has continued to support a two-state solution by hosting discussions this month with Israeli and Palestinian representatives, searching for an avenue toward peace. Based on the positive feedback from those talks, I am certain that United States recognition of a Palestinian state would make it easier for other countries that have not recognized Palestine to do so, and would clear the way for a Security Council resolution on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Security Council should pass a resolution laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict. It should reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders, while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications. Security guarantees for both Israel and Palestine are imperative, and the resolution must acknowledge the right of both the states of Israel and Palestine to live in peace and security. Further measures should include the demilitarization of the Palestinian state, and a possible peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations.

A strong Security Council resolution would underscore that the Geneva Conventions and other human rights protections apply to all parties at all times. It would also support any agreement reached by the parties regarding Palestinian refugees.

The combined weight of United States recognition, United Nations membership and a Security Council resolution solidly grounded in international law would lay the foundation for future diplomacy. These steps would bolster moderate Palestinian leadership, while sending a clear assurance to the Israeli public of the worldwide recognition of Israel and its security.

This is the best — now, perhaps, the only — means of countering the one-state reality that Israel is imposing on itself and the Palestinian people. Recognition of Palestine and a new Security Council resolution are not radical new measures, but a natural outgrowth of America’s support for a two-state solution.

The primary foreign policy goal of my life has been to help bring peace to Israel and its neighbors. That September in 1978, I was proud to say to a joint session of Congress, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” As Mr. Begin and Mr. Sadat sat in the balcony above us, the members of Congress stood and applauded the two heroic peacemakers.

I fear for the spirit of Camp David. We must not squander this chance.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Palestinians are “Desperate” for…

Real and Imagined Laws of Living in Silwan

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

Social Media’s “Fake News” and Mainstream Media’s Half-Truths

The Impossible Liberal Standard

The New York Times Refuses to Label Hamas a Terrorist Group

Educating the New York Times: Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood

CNN’s Embrace of Hamas

Squeezing Zionism

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

The Liberals in Canada are Following Obama in Turning on Israel

Posted on by
6

It was just a year ago, in October 2015, that liberals swept to power in Canada.  It was a continuation of a spate of wins in North America, which included a mayoral race in New York City in 2013, and, of course, eight years of US President Barack Obama winning in 2008 and 2012.

The rush in liberal wins produced a retreat from several conservatives values.  Will the liberal Canadian Prime Minister similarly back away from Israel the way Obama did in the US?

Possibly.

The treatment of Israel by President Obama was atrocious from the very beginning.  It started with his complete disregard of the April 2004 letter from President George W. Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon which assured Israel that it would not return to the 1949 Armistice Lines / the “1967 border.” The treatment of Israel devolved from there, including Obama’s leading a Democratic boycott of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of congress in 2015.

In sharp contrast to Obama, the new Canadian Prime Minister showed early support of Israel, backing the conservative party’s measure in February 2016 to ban the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) Movement against Israel in schools. Trudeau commented “The BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses.”

A month later, in March 2016, Trudeau said “Israel is a friend, Israel is an ally, Israel is a country that has values and an approach on many, many issues that are very much aligned with Canadians values. But, at the same time… we won’t hesitate from talking about unhelpful steps like the continued illegal settlements. We will point that out.”  He continued his general support of Israel saying that “the demonization, the de-legitimization or the double standard that’s often applied to Israel [at the United Nations]is not helping reach the two-state solution of a peaceful, democratic Palestinian state alongside a peaceful, democratic Israel.”

The early comments from the liberal leader seemed promising, almost in tune with his conservative predecessor, Stephen Harper, a strong ally and supporter of Israel.

But Trudeau’s pivot to the darker forces – and in particular those parties that seek to actively harm Israel – would soon surface.

trudeau
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Barack Obama
(Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

First, in January 2016, Trudeau stated that Canada sought to restart relations with Iran, a country which promised to wipe Israel from the map. By June 2016, it became public that official dialogue with the official state-sponsor of terrorism had begun.

Second, on November 16, 2016, the Canadian liberal government announced that it was resuming funding of UNRWA, the UN relief agency that supports the descendants of displaced Palestinian Arabs. The previous conservative Canadian government had cut off funding to UNRWA in 2010, after it became known that the organization was closely tied to the terrorist group Hamas. Needless to say, the United Nations was very pleased with the C$25 million donation to assist “5.3 million Palestine refugees.” (Note that there are really only an estimated 30,000 Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war.)

As detailed in “UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews,” UNRWA undermines the possibility of peace between Israelis and Palestinian Arabs at its core. It fosters a festering Israeli-Arab war, while the organization robs funding from actual refugees from around the world in need of real relief.

bibeau
International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau says
the Liberals are refunding UNRWA
(Photo: Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press)

Lastly, Trudeau has followed Obama’s lead in never condemning “radical Islamic terrorism,” but only a generic form of terrorism. This was true regarding his comments about terrorism in Orlando, Nice, Paris, Brussels, and those targeting Canadian citizens in the Philippines.

The Canadian Liberals’ resumption of funding UNRWA, and its move to reestablish ties with Iran are disturbing moves against Israel and a reversal of the policies instituted by the previous conservative government. Time will tell whether Canadian liberals follow the US in The Democrats’ Slide on Israel.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

Delivery of the Fictional Palestinian Keys

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

Palestinian “Refugees” or “SAPs”?

Is Hillary Clinton as Pro-Israel as George W Bush?

The United States Joins the Silent Chorus

Pride. Jewish and Gay

Leading Gay Activists Hate Religious Children

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Posted on by
32

Chemotherapy is a terrible thing at first glance.

The treatments make the patient feel terrible and make them look even worse. After repeated treatments, the person becomes a shell of their former selves, losing hair, weight and energy.  They often appear as living dead.

Amazingly, people suffering from cancer before commencing chemotherapy often do not look ill to the outside world.  While the disease may be destroying the individual internally, the cure looks to be the actual instrument of death.

But appearances can be deceiving.  The chemotherapy gives hope to an otherwise terminal situation.

The Confusion between Cancer and Chemotherapy
in the Middle East

Israel’s military administration east of the Green Line (EGL)/ the West Bank is neither pleasant for Israelis or Palestinian Arabs. The patrols, checkpoints, security barriers, raids and arrests make the region appear as a battleground rather than a holy land.

But for those that look past the skirmishes and understand the nature of the protagonists in the land, the Israeli military is not the sickness, but forces that may enable peace in the region.

The Israeli Perspective

For Israelis, the cancer in the region is the adamant refusal of Palestinian Arabs to accept the rights of Jews to live in the region and to be self-governing.

The Arabs’ violent opposition started in the 1920s with several riots and pogroms against Jews throughout Palestine, and became multi-year riots in the 1930s when the Arabs convinced the British administrators to limit admission of Jews to the region on the eve of the Holocaust. The opposition grew into all out wars, from Israel’s founding in 1948, successive wars in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, to other violent intifadas and wars from the 1980s until today.

The refusal to accept the Jewish state was made clear by the terrorist Palestinian party Hamas, which seeks the complete destruction of Israel as declared in its charter and by its current leadership.  The refusal is seen in the “relatively moderate” Fatah party which controls the West Bank, which seeks to “eradicate the Zionist entity.”

The acting-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas reiterates these positions continuously, including a refusal to accept the basic history and religious rights of Jews in Israel:

  • In July 2016, Palestinian Arabs pushed UNESCO to sever any Jewish connection with the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
  • In March 2016, Abbas accused Israel of “Judaizing” the Temple Mount, as if there weren’t two Jewish Temples that stood on the platform for hundreds of years.
  • In October 2015, Abbas addressed the UN Human Rights Council where he referred to Israel as a “colonial” power, as if Jews had not lived in the land for thousands of years.
  • In September 2015, Abbas called on Arabs to martyr themselves for Jerusalem.
  • In 2014, Abbas stated that he will never recognize the Jewishness of the State of Israel.
  • In 2013, Abbas said that he does not want a single Jew – soldier or civilian – living in Palestine.

The “moderate” leader of the Palestinian Arabs praised people who killed Israeli civilians and named schools after the terrorists. His government has a Palestinian law that considers it a capital offense to sell land to Jews, and Palestinian universities do not allow Jews to step foot onto the campuses.

For Israelis, the cancer in the region is the Arab and Muslim hatred for any Jews living in the holy land and a desire to expel them. The Iranian leader summed up the feelings of many Muslims in the region in 2012 when he said that Israel was a “cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”

rabbi-in-blood
Rabbis killed by Palestinian terrorist while they prayed in synagogue
November 2014

Whether the Arabs use lethal force, threats of boycotts, or UN resolutions, the tactics are just components of a war against the very presence of Jews and the existence of the Jewish State. The Palestinian hatred was highlighted in an ADL poll which showed almost every Palestinian Arab as being an anti-Semite.

The Palestinian Arab Perspective

The Palestinian Arabs do not see their hatred for Jews as the core problem. The Arab argument is that the Jews have no right to be on their land and to create a state for themselves.

Simply put, if the Jews would not be living in their land, the Arabs would not hate them.  If the Jews lived in another part of the world the Palestinian Arab anti-Semitism may resemble the hatred of Jews found in other parts of the world, not more nor less.

For the Palestinians, the “cancer” is the Jewish theft of their land, whether in the West Bank or Israel proper.  That is why in September 2016, Abbas asked Great Britain to apologize for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which served as a starting point to reestablish the Jewish homeland in Palestine as then laid out in international law in the 1920 San Remo Agreement and the 1922 Mandate of Palestine. The Arabs feel that the imperialist world powers had no right to dictate what should happen in the Arab lands.

The United Nations Perspective

The United Nations sees the core of the conflict as stemming from the Palestinian Arabs not having full independence and autonomy.  The UN sought an independent Arab state alongside a Jewish state when it put forward the 1947 Partition Plan.  While the Jews accepted the plan, the Arabs rejected it, and since 1948, the Jews have had autonomy in their own state while the local Palestinian Arabs have not.

In 1977, the UN used the 30th anniversary of the 1947 Partition Plan, to establish an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN has continued to advance a two-state solution, albeit only since 1993, with some Arab support.

Overall, the UN believes that it is the “frustration” of the Palestinians that makes them “desperate” and “resort” to violence against the Jews.

 

Three different opinions as to the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict:

  1. For Israel, it is the perceived Arab hatred and their refusal to accept Jews in the land
  2. For Arabs, it is the perceived Jewish theft of Arab land
  3. For the United Nations, it is the perceived frustrations of Arabs not having a state

Each view of the conflict has its own path towards resolving it.

Long Term Treatment

The United Nations Perspective

From the UN’s perspective, the solution seems pretty straight-forward: if the core of the conflict is the lack of a Palestinian State, then create a Palestinian State.

The issue is that the 1947 Partition Plan is no longer viable.

After five Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, the Israelis pushed the line of their territory further, to the 1949 Armistice Lines.  While the warring parties all agreed that those lines were NOT to be viewed as permanent borders, the international community recognized those lines as being the limits of Israeli law, and do so to this day.

When Israel conquered more lands in another defensive war in 1967, and then annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem, the issue started to become even more complicated. While Israel offered to return land immediately for peace after the war, the Arabs refused to engage.  It would take another 21 years, until the 1988 Madrid Conference, for the Israelis and some Palestinian Arabs to begin to formulate a plan for co-existence.

Land for Peace: As the Israelis and Egyptians were able to successfully forge a peace agreement based on returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, the UN pushed more aggressively for the Israelis to hand land – specifically Gaza and the West Bank – to Palestinian Arabs for a new state. For the UN, land = statehood = peace, and the end of the conflict.

However, in 2005, after the Israelis left Gaza unilaterally, the area was taken over by the elected terrorist group Hamas which subsequently fought wars against Israel in 2008, 2012 and 2014. Land for Palestinian Arabs did not equal peace for Israel.

Still, the UN believes that land-for-peace and the creation of a Palestinian State will ultimately stop the fighting.  As such, the UN views Israel’s presence (civilian settlements) and administration (military control) of the West Bank as key parts of the problem. Therefore, as part of getting to peace, the UN is pushing for all Israelis to abandon the West Bank to create a “viable” Palestinian State.

The Palestinian Arab Perspective

Many Palestinians – including Hamas and its supporters – feel that the only way to solve the problem of land theft is to return the land to its rightful owners – the Arabs. To meet that end, they seek the full destruction of the Jewish State.

The more moderate Palestinian Arabs do not seek to destroy Israel; they just want to return to homes and villages that existed 70 years ago, even if they no longer exist. They want to live in a state that has no Jewish preferences, and resembles the Arab and Muslim countries in the region.

The more pragmatic Palestinian Arabs are willing to follow the recommendation of the United Nations: a new State of Palestine without Jews in the West Bank and Gaza, and many Arabs (fewer than the millions they desire) sent to Israel to reclaim their land.

The Israeli Perspective

For Israelis, the cancer of violent hatred and a refusal to accept a Jewish presence and a Jewish State is not easy to cure. The hatred is systemic on many levels in the Arab culture, particularly among Palestinian Arabs today.

Israelis employ a number of approaches:

  • Champion Arabs in Israel. Israelis point out the liberal nature of the country and the integration of Arabs throughout Israel.
  • Respect for Holy Sites. Even after taking over the Old City of Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1967, Israel gave full rights to Muslim worshippers, even though the Jordanians forbade any Jewish access to their holy sites when they ruled the sites.
  • Protection.  The Palestinian Arabs have killed thousands of Israeli civilians over the decades, whether they were children in school, mothers in pizza stores, or families in their beds.  Israel actively seeks to protect all Israelis from violence, wherever they live. While not addressing the hatred, it addresses the murders.

A possible long-term solution that incorporates the three parties’ perspectives could be achieved through a negotiated process between the Israel and the Palestinian Authority that would include:

  • Payment to descendants of refugees for homes lost 70 years ago, and invitations to actual Palestinian Arab refugees to return into Israel (address perceived “theft”)
  • Removal of any “settlement” built on privately-owned land (address theft)
  • Ban Hamas from being part of any Palestinian government (address Arab hatred)
  • Recognize Israel as a Jewish State and permit Jews to live in a Palestinian state(address perception that Arabs reject Jewish rights to live in the land)
  • Demilitarized Palestinian State and annexation of key blocs of Area C into Israel (address security)
  • Mutual and mirrored control of holy sites, such that Israel has special authority over the Cave of the Patriarchs in Palestinian Hebron, and Arabs have special authority of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel (address rights and access to holy sites)

In all likelihood, should the parties ever get to a two-state solution, it will likely look something like the bullet points above.

But how can the parties get to a new starting point to advance peace?

Current Treatment

For the Palestinians and United Nations, the Israeli military control in the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza are part-and-parcel of their perception that the root cause of the conflict is Israeli presence in Arab lands.  But for the Israelis, the military presence is a basic security requirement to defend themselves.

How does one undo the Catch-22 of the situation to resolve the conflict?

  • If the Israeli presence was removed from the West Bank, would the Arabs recognize the rights of Jews in the region? Not based on the history of three wars from Gaza; or according to Abbas who will never recognize Israel as a Jewish State; let alone the basic suggestions of removing every Jew means that there is no recognition of Jewish rights. FAIL.
  • If the UN tries to dictate a two-state solution without the parties involvement, then each party will fight the implementation as they have no ownership for the compromises required to make peace happen. FAIL.
  • If the Palestinians stop incitement, beginning with banning Hamas and all terrorist groups from the government, Israel could – and should – begin to soften the Gaza blockade and other security restrictions. The process begins. SUCCESS.

According to the Oslo II Accords, the last agreement signed between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority, Israel is in complete control of Area C in the West Bank, where all of the Jewish towns exist. In Area B, the Israelis and PA security teams coordinate security together.  It is a matter of modern record that the current Israeli military presence in the West Bank has been approved by the Palestinians themselves.

In general, it has worked.

  • Israel’s security measures have kept the Syrian civil war and ISIS from overwhelming the country. Millions of Syrian refugees currently reside in Jordan, a short swim from Israel and the West Bank.
  • Israel’s security measures have minimized the flow of heavy weaponry into Gaza and the country’s Iron Dome blocked many missiles emanating from Gaza. These efforts reduced the counter-measures and duration of the wars with Gaza, saving many lives.
  • Israel’s security measures in the West Bank, including the security barrier, reduced the number of attacks and deaths from Palestinian terrorists during the Second Intifada. Patrols prevent potential attacks from happening. Consider that during the three wars from Gaza, there was little violence in the West Bank.

dsc_0036
Sticker in Jerusalem
(photo: FirstOneThrough)

Israel’s “military occupation” of the West Bank may appear ugly, but it has saved both Israeli and Palestinian Arab lives.

Ultimately, no hatred and killings, no military response.

If there’s no cancer, there’s no chemotherapy.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings

Stabbing the Palestinian “Right of Return”

Abbas Knows Racism

Nicholas Kristof’s “Arab Land”

Obama’s “Palestinian Land”

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

Israeli Olympians get their #IsraeliLivesMatter Moment

Posted on by
2

In the global language of sport, there is a grand opera called the Olympics every few years. The world’s greatest compete and perform on the world stage for glory and entertainment.

In 1972, politics and poisonous hatred entered the forum, and 11 Israeli champions of sport were murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists.

For over 40 years, two wives of the slain athletes fought for a moment of remembrance for their husbands. The head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused. This week that changed. Or did it?

On August 3, 2016, before the opening of the games in Rio, Brazil, the new IOC President Thomas Bach inaugurated the Place of Mourning, which will now be a feature at every Olympics, with two stones from ancient Olympia encased in glass.  Bach said at the opening “Today, the inauguration of the Place of Mourning give us the opportunity to remember those that have passed away at the Olympic Games.”

He then read the names of ALL people who died at the Olympics – not just the murdered Israeli athletes.  The role call included Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died on the eve of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in an accident in the sliding centre.

And so politics entered the Olympics arena once again.

Palestinian Arabs objected to the memorial of the slain Israelis, just as many Arab countries refuse to recognize the existence of Israel, and their athletes refuse to compete against Israeli athletes.

So the IOC compromised on the request of the Israeli widows who had fought for decades for an appropriate memorial, by remembering them in a mass grave.  The slain Israelis were no longer unique.  They were not singled out and murdered by terrorists.  The Israeli athletes were simply victims of their passionate competition, not terrorism.

The IOC recognized the Israelis only as athletes in an #AllLivesMatter moment. At the Olympics, it is JeSuisAthletes, not JeSuisIsraeli.  The dead are the dead and we mourn them all.

However, the Israelis did not get the chance to compete.  They did not die on the field, competing in the sports they loved.  They were taken hostage as they slept in their beds.  They were not seized as athletes, but as Israelis. These victims were individuals who came into the Olympic tent to compete with their fellow athletes, but the IOC failed to protect them.

The wives of the slain Israelis were happy that the IOC did not forgot their husbands and other members of the Israeli delegation. It has been a very long journey for them.

Yet it is disappointing that the best the IOC could muster was “AllAthletesMatter.

Related First.One.Through articles:

My Terrorism

How to recognize an event, without admitting complicity:  Austria’s View of Kristallnacht

Black Lives Matter Joins the anti-Israel “Progressives” Fighting Zionism

Memory and Responsibility in Germany

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

Black Lives Matter Joins the anti-Israel “Progressives” Fighting Zionism

Posted on by
25

In an effort to expand its base of support, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has sought to align itself with a variety of global “progressive” causes including transgender rights and combatting global warming. It has also taken some poor advice in connecting itself with an anti-Israel organization.

As part of its new broad platform, BLM worked with Nadia Ben-Youssef of Adalah, a group that claims it is “advancing democracy and equality for all Israelis.” As detailed in “Adalah, Dismantling Zionism,” the group does not seek equality for all Israelis, but seeks to replace the Jewish State with a bi-national state, and to insert a new Jew-free state into the West Bank.

The BLM platform includes a call to “Invest-Divest” with the following statement:

“The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people….
Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall.”

What advisors suggested that BLM align itself with such an anti-Israel organization like Adalah? That demonizes the only liberal country in the Middle East?

Could it be that left-wing radicals like Senator Bernie Sanders and his advisors at J Street pointed him in this direction?  Perhaps Cornell West, one of Sanders consultants who worked (but failed) to include language that demonized Israel in the 2016 Democratic platform, found a new platform to make his mark?  The author of this smear campaign was one of his students at Princeton.  Maybe it was the New Israel Fund, that donates to the group?

cornell west
Cornell West (photo by: SHFWire/ Erin Bell)

One could perhaps understand the BLM’s desire to expand its appeal and conflate its cause with that of other people.  However, seeking advice from an increasingly anti-Israel left-wing cohort, to support demonizing Israel is beyond bad judgment.

Recently, the Black Lives Matter movement was furious that Donald Trump did not disavow the endorsement of the racist David Duke of the KKK.  Trump never asked for that endorsement; it was just given to him. But now the BLM movement ACTIVELY invited an anti-Israel organization to draft its new platform, AND inscribed their slander as its official cause.  Which action was more racist and malicious?

One can only imagine how deeply the BLM leadership must have wanted to forcefully jab their fingers into Israel lovers worldwide.

Related First.One.Through articles:

Squeezing Zionism

“Peace” According to Palestinian “Moderates”

The Fault in Our Tent: The Limit of Acceptable Speech

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

The Left-Wing’s Two State Solution: 1.5 States for Arabs, 0.5 for Jews

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: FirstOne Through  Israel Analysis

Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

Posted on by
16

On April 19, 2016, the people of the State of New York vote in presidential primaries. The U.S. state with the greatest number of Jews has the opportunity to vote in presidential primaries where a Jew is running on a major ticket for the very first time.

sanders
Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders

Remarkably, the Jewish candidate is  – by far – the most aggressive and confrontational in his views of the Jewish State:

These positions are actually held by other left-wing groups who consider themselves pro-Israel, as does Sanders. J Street (the home of Sanders’ Jewish outreach person) has even proposed that the United States begin punishing Israel at the United Nations Security Council, where the US is often the sole vote that prevents Israel from being subject to many biased laws. How’s that for pro-Israel?

J Street and Sanders still like to use the term “pro-Israel” in their tagline as they believe that Israel has the right to exist. Maybe they should consider the fact that most people think Peru should exist too, but don’t brand themselves as “pro-Peru.”  A “pro-Peru” person would presumably not call for boycotting Peru’s goods or sanctioning it at the UN. Approving a country’s existence does not grant bona fides.

Radical left-wing people and groups like Bernie Sanders, Jewish Voice for Peace, Neturei Karta and J Street use their Jewishness as a red herring for their anti-Israel blood libels.  If they were not Jewish and held these positions and made these statements, people would call them out as “anti-Israel” easily and immediately.

The Democrats have been moving away from Israel since Barack Obama was elected to office in 2008. The relationship blew up in full in 2012, when the Democrats opted to remove the long-standing pro-Israel positions in the party’s platform including:

  • No longer stating that the US will isolate Hamas until it renounces terrorism
  • No longer called for the Palestinian “refugees” to be settled in a new country of Palestine rather than Israel
  • No longer stating that it is unrealistic to expect the border contours to follow the 1949 Armistice Lines
  • Barely approved recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

The Democratic party moved away from Israel these past eight years, and the radical socialist-wing of the party has moved it further still. (And this is while Sanders’ running for the office of president. One can only imagine how much more aggressive he would be if he actually won the office.)

The anti-Israel wing of the Democratic party has a champion.  How many people will embrace him?

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Left-Wing’s Two State Solution: 1.5 States for Arabs, 0.5 for Jews

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel.

Has the “Left-Wing” Joined the UN in Protecting Iran and the Palestinians from a “Right-Wing” Israel?

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

Squeezing Zionism

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

Subscribe YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis

An Open Letter to Non-Anti-Semitic Sanders Supporters

Posted on by
21

Liberal presidential candidate Bernie Sanders may say that he is a proud Jew, but he is the only person among the five major candidates still running for president, that continues to attack Israel for defending itself against Palestinian Arabs that are sworn to the country’s destruction.

sanders 2
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
(picture: Dan Tuohy, Union Leader)

On April 9, 2016, Sanders spoke to an audience in Harlem, New York that asked a series of anti-Semitic questions of him.  As Daniel Greenfield noted about Sanders’ response to this anti-Semite’s invective about “Zionist Jews” who “control the media”, the liberal candidate made no attempt to denounce the vile anti-Jewish comments. Instead, he protested his bona fides about being uniquely critical of Israel.

Just one month ago, Ryan Grim, the Washington bureau chief for the liberal media spot The Huffington Post, wrote an article called “An Open Letter to Non-Racist Donald Trump Supporters” asking Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s supporters to distance themselves from the kind of people that attend Trump rallies. He wrote:

“You may not physically assault anti-Trump protesters, think Abraham Lincoln’s decision to free enslaved African-Americans was hasty or want immigrants immediately deported. But you know as well as we do that a portion of Trump’s fans do feel this way.

It may not be fair, but it has fallen to you to disavow these people. Your silence is condoning a violent environment. You’re serving as a welcoming committee of sorts to new racists hoping to enter the party. From a crass political perspective, it’s self-defeating: You will never win a national election on a ticket with the Klan. But it matters from a moral perspective, too. “

Liberals, it is time for you to take your own advice and “disavow” the anti-Semites and other liberals that seek the destruction of Israel at rallies for your liberal candidate.

Related First.One.Through articles:

The Democrats’ Slide on Israel

Liberals’ Biggest Enemies of 2015

The Invisible Anti-Semitism in Obama’s 2016 State of the Union

The Candidates Feed the Pro-Israel Community’s Fears and Aspirations

What’s “Left” for The New York Times?

Subscribe YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis