After UNRWA

Posted on February 16, 2024 by First.One.Through

People are trying to figure out what to do with UNRWA, the troubled United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. The organization has long perpetuated the Arab-Israeli conflict, fomenting hatred for Jews in its schools, and promising millions of Arabs that their future is in Israeli towns and villages where grandparents who had wished for the destruction of the Jewish State once lived.

The temporary agency is funded by voluntary contributions from UN member states, so can be dissolved very quickly, as was always intended. The issue at the moment is that the hospitals and schools still need to operate, with or without the existence of UNRWA. The five regions where UNRWA operates – Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon – all have different dynamics, politics and infrastructure, and the future will be different for each.

The best solution is for UNRWA to be dissolved and its personnel and infrastructure to be handed to proper authorities: operations in Lebanon and Syria would shift to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee agency; Jordanian operations to the government of Jordan; and operations in the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, in a staged process.

Syria and Lebanon to UNHCR

There are approximately 581,000 descendants of 1948 Palestinian Arabs in Syria being cared for by UNRWA in 2022, and another 93,000 people for whom the agency also gives free services. The numbers are 487,000 and 70,000 in Lebanon for refugee descendants and other wards, respectively. All of them have been denied citizenship by their host countries.

These people and the associated infrastructure should be handed over immediately to UNHCR which cares for over 89 million people as of 2022. UNHCR would try to settle the 1.23 million people either in those host countries or find them citizenship elsewhere, just as it does with millions of other stateless people.

Jordan

Jordan was part of the original Palestine Mandate of 1922, and England separated the land east of the Jordan River to become a new country known as Transjordan in 1923. After Transjordan attacked Israel at its founding and illegally seized the eastern part of what remained of Palestine, it illegally annexed that land and renamed itself “Jordan.” It ethnically cleansed all Jews from the region, including eastern Jerusalem, and granted citizenship to everyone in 1954, as they long as they weren’t Jewish (Nationality Law Article 3).

Not surprisingly with such deep history with the land “between the River and the Sea,” roughly half of Jordan is “Palestinian”, approximately 2.6 million people including Queen Rania. These “UNRWA refugees” in Jordan have Jordanian citizenship and have zero need to collect global charity under the false notion that they are stateless and lack self-determination.

The schools and hospitals should be transferred to the government of Jordan’s control immediately. Some countries may want to continue to voluntarily contribute to the Jordanian king for some time to help absorb the hit to the country’s budget, and then slowly wean the king from the global money teat.

West Bank to the Palestinian Authority

Palestinians declared a state in 1988, and most non-western countries have recognized its independence. It is ruled by the Palestinian Authority, which elected a president from the Fatah Party in 2005 and a parliament in 2006 with a majority from Hamas.

The PA operates from the West Bank city of Ramallah and has responsibility for the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs living in the West Bank. The Authority is viewed as weak and corrupt by Palestinians and others. It supplies money to terrorists and their families in a program alternatively called a Martyrs’ Fund / Pay-to-Slay program, which is popular amongst Palestinians and detested by civil societies for directly supporting terror. The PA has failed on all fronts, not being able to show the ability to govern internally nor to advance a future of coexistence with the Jewish State.

Alas, it’s much better than the alternative Hamas which has ruled in Gaza since 2007 when it seized control of the region from the PA. Perhaps with greater focus on good governance with western oversight, the PA can be reformed.

Handing the 96 schools and 43 health facilities operating in the West Bank to the PA should happen immediately. Funding for the operations should cover only six to nine months and a cohort of countries led by the United States, which is UNRWA’s principle benefactor, should use the time to stabilize the transition. That includes ensuring that no hatred for Jews or teaching about the destruction of Israel is found anywhere in the facilities or educational materials.

Continued funding for the schools and hospitals after the initial transition period should be captured under the United States Taylor Force Act. Just as the PA is denied getting any US monies as long as it pays terrorist salaries in the Pay-to-Slay program, it would also lose funding that used to come through UNRWA for the schools and hospitals. The historic backdoor circumventing American laws would be sealed closed, and the US and PA would need to work together to ensure that supporting terrorism comes to a definitive end for any monetary support to come to the PA.

Gaza, At Some Point, to the Palestinian Authority

While UNRWA’s West Bank operations should move to the PA immediately, UNRWA in Gaza is a different story. Not only must the PA prove it can absorb the many facilities and cleanse them of their toxic hatred, the PA will be tested as to whether it can take control of Gaza after 17 years of Hamas rule.

Hamas’s complete rule of Gaza since 2007 brought the region complete destruction. It focused all of its energies on building a war infrastructure to destroy the Jewish State next door, rather than build a functioning economy and society. It left the schools and hospitals for the world to fund and run, so cared little about letting them get destroyed while its leaders hid like cowards underground.

Neither Hamas nor the PA can take over the rebuilding of the schools and health care facilities. Over the next several years, another global cohort, perhaps similar to the one easing the UNRWA transition in the West Bank, should be tasked with building institutions anew. Basic humanitarian values and rights must be incorporated into the very foundations to chart a path for a future when the PA may be able to take over Gaza as well as the new former-UNRWA infrastructure.

*UNRWA camp with a keyhole and key on top symbolizing the false promise that through UNRWA, Palestinian Arabs will get to move into homes in Israel*

These actions, if properly executed, should empower and moderate a new Palestinian Authority which can take over Gaza at some point, and ultimately negotiate peace with Israel.

The first step in ending the Arab-Israel conflict is for the United Nations and Saudi Arabia to clearly state that there is NO RIGHT OF RETURN FOR PALESTINIANS TO GO TO GRANDPARENTS’ HOMES IN ISRAEL. Immediately thereafter, the dismantling of UNRWA should commence.

There is a pathway to coexistence, and it must be built on truths and respect which Arabs and Jews fully acknowledge and internalize.

Speaking Honestly About Lies In The Israel-Palestinian Conflict (November 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

Hamas Joins The Pantheon Of Antisemitic Evil Alongside Nazis, ISIS And Amalek

Posted on January 26, 2024 by First.One.Through

Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group has been called many things since its barbaric massacre on October 7. Due to the grotesque nature of the mass rape, slaughter and mutilation of people, people quickly thought of Nazis, as the killing of 1,200 Jews on a single day was the worst massacre since the Holocaust and committed with an intent to humiliate and torture Jews.

U.S. President Joe Biden said that “The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS,” and many government officials agreed. The radical jihadi group burned its enemies alive and broadcast it for the world to see as a recruiting tool, similar to the torching of Jewish families alive by Hamas fighters which they similarly broadcast.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas to Amalek, the biblical foe that sought out the weakest members of the Children of the Exodus for attack and slaughter, much as Hamas raped women and butchered children. Lawyers from South Africa have incorrectly argued at the International Court of Justice that Netanyahu’s comparison showed that Israel has genocidal intent to kill every man, woman and child in Gaza. The biblical passage actually calls for eradicating the emotional scar that Amalek left in the Jewish people which can happen in different ways: for Amalek it was to destroy them; for Nazis it was to defeat them and then have them accept responsibility and repent for their actions.

Israel has good relations with Germany today.

Hamas resembles all three groups. It is a ruling government like the Nazis, democratically elected to 58% of parliament by Palestinians. It rules over territory, much like ISIS and has a radical jihadi philosophy about killing Jews. Like Amalek, Hamas specifically targeted the most vulnerable Jewish non-combatants.

The foundational charter of Hamas is a noxious screed of antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control with calls to slaughter Jews and destroy the Jewish State. A sample of the invective includes:

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” (Opening)
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious.” (Preamble)
“Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)… there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him” (Article 7)
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time” (Article 13)
“In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…. the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis.” (Article 15)
“In their Nazi treatment, the Jews made no exception for women or children… [Jews] attack people where their breadwinning is concerned, extorting their money” (Article 20)
“The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates…. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.… fight with the warmongering Jews.” (Article 32)

The evil philosophy of Hamas was laid out in its carefully constructed charter by dozens of people over months in the 1980s, Palestinians voted them to power in 2006 and widely support them post-October 7 according to many Palestinian polls.

The very word “Nazis” brings to mind the most evil and sadistic murderers. Over the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, it was used to mark the worst antisemitic and racist White people. “Hamas” has earned that loathsome dishonor, for the most heinous and vicious antisemitic jihadists of the 21st century.

White people preaching antisemitism today are called neo-Nazis and their actions against Jewish targets bring convictions in courts for hate crimes. So it must be with Hamas supporters (neo-Hamasites?) who attack Jews and Jewish targets with messages related to the annihilation of the Jewish State.

Chumming For Antisemites (December 2023)

Hamas Is The Very Definition Of A Genocidal Group (November 2023)

Terrifying Trifecta Of Anti-Zionism (April 2023)

Hamas’s Willing Executioners (July 2021)

The Joy of Lecturing Jews (May 2020)

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War (November 2014)

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today (October 2014)

Has The UN Secretary General Finally Ended The Palestinian “Right Of Return,” Preparing To Dismantle UNRWA Facilities In Gaza And The West Bank?

Posted on January 25, 2024 by First.One.Through

The United Nations has long been a terrible actor in the Israeli-Arab conflict, perpetuating the conflict through terrible policies and procedures. One of the worst offenses which contributed to the October 7 massacre and the current Gaza War was backing the “right of return” for millions of Arabs into Israel.

The United Nations agency, UNRWA, services roughly 7.5 million people of which 6.7 million are registered as refugees, with another 763,000 on the global dole. The vast majority of the 7.5 million are descendants of people who used to live in Israel in 1947. Amongst these so-called “refugees,” approximately 1.8 million live in Gaza and 1.1 million in the West Bank, a total of 2.9 million, or 43 per cent of UNRWA “refugees” live inside of 1947 Palestine.

These 2.9 million have been told by the United Nations that they will get to move into Israel for the last 75 years, based on a single line in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 of December 1948, that has long passed its expiration date. With that false promise, Gazans spend their time and money building a war infrastructure rather than an economy as they don’t imagine a future in their current neighborhood of historic Palestine, but in the Jewish State.

On January 23, 2024, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres may have laid the groundwork to finally end the dream of these 2.9 million Palestinians that their future homes will be in Israel.

In his remarks to the UN Security Council he said “The right of the Palestinian people to build their own fully independent State must be recognized by all. And any refusal to accept the two-State solution by any party must be firmly rejected. What is the alternative? How would a one-State solution look with such a large number of Palestinians inside without any real sense of freedom, rights and dignity? This would be inconceivable.”

The first part of Guterres’s comments is simply wrong. No state has a right to exist. None. Not Portugal, not China, not South Sudan, not Kurdistan. Individuals have a right to self-determination and there are many ways for that to be realized which do not create another Arab and Muslim country.

The second segment of his remarks, marked in bold above, is an important milestone for the UN. It is the first time Guterres essentially rejected the notion of Arabs swarming Israel – either in a one state solution or as part of a two-state solution in which 6.7 million Arab “refugees” enter the Jewish State.

Finally acknowledging that this will not happen, Guterres should make an unambiguous statement that there is no “right of return” for Arabs into Israel, a stale idea floated over 75 years ago in the midst of the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. In addition to such proclamation, he must follow up with actions to dismantle the “refugee” camps which dot Gaza and the West Bank, where UNRWA schools teach young Arabs that they will move into Israel and where UN facilities have keys above the portal to emphasize that the doorway for Palestinians to move into Israel is via the United Nations.

*Entrance to Aida Refugee Camp (مخيم عايده) in Bethlehem with keyhole gateway and key on top to symbolize that UNRWA is the pathway for Palestinians to return to ancestors’ homes.*

The United Nations finally said the obvious, that millions of Palestinian Arabs moving to Israel is “inconceivable.” It is time to explicitly state that there is no “right of return” and to dismantle the “temporary” refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank which have long served as incubators for extremism and terrorism.

The “Context” For October 7 Is Palestinians Prioritize Destroying Israel Over Getting Statehood (January 2024)

The Only Way The Conflict Can End (November 2023)

Israel, Ceuta and Melilla: Third World Escape Hatches (November 2023)

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave (December 2021)

UNRWA Is A Prison (November 2021)

Shut UNRWA in Gaza Immediately (August 2018)

When the Democrats Opposed the Palestinian “Right of Return” (August 2018)

A “Viable” Palestinian State (March 2015)

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR (September 2014)

Gaza Swag

Posted on January 22, 2024 by First.One.Through

Swag is commonly thought of as customized merchandise which people take from parties or conventions. The actual definition is illegally taken booty or loot.

Swag from Gaza comes in both varieties.

Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza are obviously confiscating weapons that they find throughout the territory. As Gaza is a densely-populated civilian area, these weapons of war are found in many homes, schools and mosques. Soldiers find many other items in those locations which they also bring back to Israel.

A favorite item are the Hamas headbands. These are found throughout Gazan homes, as the group which governs Gaza is very popular. Some Israelis bring these back as souvenirs. Israeli soldiers are reported to have taken Hamas patches and logos on other items as well.

*Young Gazan child with Hamas headband, cool shades and a machine gun.*

Hamas posters in UNRWA schools are also a favorite. Some are handed to the Israeli government along with school textbooks which call for the genocide of Jews to press the case for reform at the United Nations. Others are keepsakes to hang on the soldiers’ own walls when they come home, to remind them of the barbarity of Hamas.

Al-Qassam Brigades logo, the military wing of the Hamas movement

Many soldiers have reported seeing screensavers on computers of Adolf Hitler as well as his book “Mein Kampf” written in Arabic in people’s homes. Some of those things have found there way into Israel as well.

Palestinian Arabs also took swag from Israel: Jewish bodies.

Israeli soldier Cpl. Adir Tahar, 19, was decapitated by Palestinians on October 7 after he was killed in an explosion. His father found out from an interrogation of captured Hamas fighters that Arabs took his son’s severed head to Gaza and tried to sell if for $10,000.

Hamas also took many whole Jewish bodies to Gaza. The corpses were beaten and spat upon by dozens of Palestinians as the dead Jews were driven through the streets. It is unclear if the dead were marketed to the locals or held for ransom, as Hamas has said that they do not know the location of many hostages. Many were alive, some children to poke and prod. Grandparents and peace activists pulled from their homes. To shouts of “Allahu Akbar!“

*Dead Israeli woman, killed by Hamas in a dance festival, being taken into Gaza*

Israelis are bringing Hamas swag to Israel as evidence of the United Nations’ complicity in the war against Israel and reminder that the evil ideology extends well beyond 30,000 fighters. Meanwhile Hamas hauls Jews to Gaza – alive and dead, in whole or in parts – as a form of income and satisfaction.

There is a profound political deformity and moral depravity in Palestinian society today. When governments demand that Israel ignore both and discuss enabling a Palestinian state next door at this very moment in time while Jews are still trapped in captivity is a cruel form of psychological torture.

The Asynchronous Audience At Jihadists’ Auto-da-Fe (November 2023)

Abbas Pays Tribute To Murderers Of Jews Before The United Nations General Assembly, To Applause (September 2023)

Gaslighting Gas Chambers and Indigenousness (September 2023)

Palestinian Authority “Martyrs Fund” May Soon Fund Killing Jews in the US and UK (August 2023)

Excerpt of Hamas Charter to Share with Your Elected Officials (May 2021)

Parshat Zachor: Defeating the Scar (February 2021)

Quantifying the Values of Gazans (May 2019)

Politicians React to Vile and Vulgar Palestinian Hatred (May 2017)

Grading Evil and Evil Doers (December 2015)

I’m Offended, You’re Dead (February 2015)

Jamaal Bowman Parrots Iran That American Exceptionalism Is A Lie Based In Racism

Posted on January 21, 2024 by First.One.Through

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, the far-left wing representative of lower Westchester County in New York State, has an interesting tactic of seeking reelection to serve in the United States Congress: to lambast America and its allies.

Bowman spoke in Yonkers last week alongside noted anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein. Bowman said that Americans had been fed lies about what was going on in Israel for 75 years and Finkelstein and other Arab leaders were going to give the audience their versions of “the truth.”

Seemingly not satisfied with the applause of demonizing the Jewish State and excusing the long history of Arab rejectionism of coexistence and support of Hamas and the atrocities it committed on October 7, Bowman railed against the United States:

“We have told ourselves in this country the myth of American exceptionalism which excuses us from our moral responsibility – not just in Gaza and Palestine – but right here in the U.S. The reason why we continue to incarcerate Black and Brown people at the highest rates in the world is because of the lie of American exceptionalism, that’s rooted in racism and bigotry and discrimination. And it’s that lie, that myth that allows us to ignore and look the other way, while being complicit in the mass murder and mass starvation of the people of Gaza.”

*Rep. Jamaal Bowman lambasting the United States as “rooted in racism, bigotry and discrimination” at event in Yonkers to discuss the Israel-Palestinian conflict from a Hamas point of view*

Bowman echoed the narrative of his apparent mentors in the Islamic Republic of Iran. In November 2020, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said American leaders are “not committed to any principles, neither human principles, nor human rights, nor international law and regulations.”

Rouhani’s successor, President Ebrahim Raisi said much the same in October 2022 that “the remarks of the American president [Joe Biden] – who is inciting chaos, terror and the destruction of another country – serve as a reminder of the eternal words of the founder of the Islamic Republic who called America the Great Satan. The enemy’s plot must be countered.”

Bowman is a proud member of the alt-left “squad” that demonizes America and its allies, capitalism and the economy, as well as the police and courts, all in favor of a massively destructive redistribution of wealth from non-Black people to Blacks. He is anchoring his reelection campaign by bonding Hamas supporters with Hamas apologists, in a terrifying display of antisemitic socialist rage to the praise of the Iranian regime.

The “Context” For October 7 Is Palestinians Prioritize Destroying Israel Over Getting Statehood (January 2024)

Jamaal Bowman Is Unfit To Serve In Congress (November 2023)

Paying to Murder Jews: From Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Iran to the Palestinian Authority (December 2017)

Has the “Left-Wing” Joined the UN in Protecting Iran and the Palestinians from a “Right-Wing” Israel? (July 2015)

The “Context” For October 7 Is Palestinians Prioritize Destroying Israel Over Getting Statehood

Posted on January 21, 2024 by First.One.Through

The disgusting defenses of Hamas and its sadistic brutality committed on October 7, 2023 come in a number of varieties. Some people openly support the killing of Jews and desire to see the destruction of the Jewish State. Others excuse Hamas’s atrocities by stating that the actions require “context,” meaning Israeli activities limiting movement and denying Palestinian Arabs a nation. This is a discussion on the second group, as the first are obviously vile and dangerous antisemites who should be driven from the public square.

Denying Versus Not Declaring A Palestinian State

Apologists for Palestinian terrorists include Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York’s 16th District, who argue that Palestinians have been denied their rights for 75 years, as Bowman recently said at a Yonkers event with notorious anti-Zionist Norman Finkelstein, who had described the October 7 massacre as “heroic resistance.” Bowman’s statement is a complete lie.

It was Palestinian and regional Arabs who rejected forming an Arab state during the November 1947 United Nations partition plan. It was Palestinian and regional Arab countries that waged a war to destroy Israel in 1948-9 and not form a State of Palestine in the aftermath. It was those same groups that again tried to destroy Israel in 1967 rather than declare a Palestinian State.

Again and again, Palestinians themselves did not declare a state as they wanted the entirety of the land “from the river to the sea” to be the State of Palestine, so focused their efforts on destroying Israel. When they made moves to accept a state on part of the land in the Oslo Accords, they once again opted for war in 2000 rather than forge a final settlement.

The Independent Gaza Strip

After Israel put down the multi-year Two-Percent Palestinian war waged from 2000 to 2004, Israeli leaders decided to give Palestinians more independence and self-determination. With assurance from President George W. Bush in an April 4, 2004 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Israel disengaged from Gaza, knowing that the U.S. was committed to backing Israel on key points that deadlocked the Oslo agreements: that final borders of Israel would not be along the 1949 Armistice Lines / “1967 borders” and would prioritize Israeli security and facts on the ground; and that Palestinian “refugees” (mostly descendants of Arabs who once lived in Israel) would settle in a new Palestinian State and not have a “right of return” to towns grandparents once lived in in Israel.

Israel withdrew all civilians and military from the Gaza Strip in September 2005. Palestinians were elated. According to a poll Palestinians conducted of themselves on the eve of Israeli withdrawal, “84% see it [Gaza withdrawal] as victory for armed resistance,” meaning that they saw the terrorism waged from 2000 to 2004 as forcing Israel to leave the region unilaterally. As opposed to the Oslo Agreement in which they would have needed to recognize the Jewish State but gotten most of the West Bank too, they got independence and self-determination just in Gaza without acknowledging Jewish rights to anything.

With their newfound freedom, Palestinians went to the voting booths in January 2006 to vote in a Palestinian parliament. Hamas, with its violent and antisemitic jihadi charter which calls for killing Jews and destruction of Israel, trampled the more secular Fatah, winning 58% of the parliamentary seats. (The last time the US Congress was so dominated by a single party was 2009 when Democrats had 59%).

The sentiment and quest for Jewish blood similarly rose.

When Israel pulled out of Gaza in September 2005, 46% of Gazans said that they supported killing Jews inside of Israel. By March 2006, that percentage rose to 64% and continued to rise.

In June 2007, Hamas violently threw out the Palestinian Authority and took over full control of Gaza. At that point, 74% of Gazans supported terrorism against Jews in Israel, even before Israel imposed a blockade on the strip. During the roughly two years that Palestinian Arabs had independence and self-determination – the only time in history when they had such freedom – their thirst for violent jihad INCREASED.

Palestinians have shown repeatedly that the desire to eliminate Israel dwarves their goal of self-determination and a state. Discussions of handing Palestinians more territory to rule after their sadistic savagery is not just blind to history and Arab sentiment, but dismisses the humanity of over 7 million Jews in Israel living in their ancestral homeland.

And those who argue that Hamas’s massacre has “context” are correct but facts and history prove the exact opposite point they claim: Palestinians are determined to wage war against Jews regardless of the cost of lives and irrespective of the level of their freedom.

ACTION ITEM

Email Rep. Jamaal Bowman “Palestinians commit and support terrorism because they have prioritized the destruction of Israel over statehood. A new Palestinian state will only come with recognizing the Jewish State and accepting that there is no “right of return” of millions of Arabs into Israel.”

Email Sen. Kirsten Giilibrand

Email Sen. Chuck Schumer

“Two States For Two People” And An Arab “Right Of Return” Are Mutually Exclusive (September 2023)

Palestinians Are Still Actively Fighting The 1947-9 War Against The Jewish State. They’re Losing Again (September 2022)

Gaza, The Terrorist Enclave (December 2021)

Enduring Peace Requires Unity AND Tolerance (August 2021)

To Answer the Question Tying Anti-Semitism, Understand The Two Types of Anti-Zionists (July 2021)

Hamas’s Willing Executioners (July 2021)

No One Mentions Actual Palestinians’ Sentiments (May 2021)

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity (August 2016)

UN’s Confusion on the Legality of Israel’s Blockade of Gaza (July 2015)

NO Country Has A Right To Exist. Israel SHOULD Exist

Posted on January 18, 2024 by First.One.Through

When the congressional hearing about antisemitism at universities asked three university presidents whether they believed that Israel has a right to exist, they all answered in the affirmative, either believing so or feeling the pressure to state that they did. In fact, these educational leaders should have known that NO country has an inherent right to exist.

Not Turkey, not Colombia, not Japan and not Israel.

Countries have rights to secure borders and other matters, however there is nothing inherent that they must exist or that such existence cannot be dissolved.

For example, did Yugoslavia have a right to exist and does Macedonia have such right now? Did South Sudan have a right to a country before its creation? Do the Kurds have a right to a new Kurdistan in eastern Turkey together with sections of Iraq and Syria? Countries may opt to break apart into more regional tribal countries as was the case of Yugoslavia, or merge for particular political, demographic or ethnic reasons like Egypt and Syria in 1958.

But there is no inalienable right for any country to exist.

PEOPLE have a right to self-determination. Every person should be allowed to have citizenship in a country, participate in elections and have freedom of speech, religion and movement within such country as basic human rights.

It was a missed opportunity for the university presidents to educate the world on some fundamental realities but their failures were so profound, that this one was minor, especially in failing to clearly denounce repulsive calls for the genocide of Jews.

A more nuanced and interesting question is whether a country SHOULD exist. Does a country have a sound moral basis, a common sense of community and purpose? Does it have a functioning judicial system and ability and desire to govern and be governed? Is it willing to live at peace with its neighbors?

Israel meets every criteria. It has built a thriving economy and a liberal democracy in the heart of the illiberal Middle East. It has worked to forge peace agreements and engage in trade with its neighbors.

And even more, Israel built a safe haven for the most persecuted people in the world in their ancestral homeland. In their holy land. In their Promised Land.

*Morning over Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan (photo: First One Through)*

The answer is not clearcut regarding a Palestinian state.

The most compelling argument for a State of Palestine is that the Palestinians are stateless, Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). They should have self-determination and citizenship somewhere, whether in their own country or others like Jordan and Egypt. Many of the Palestinians have lived in the area for generations and share a language and culture, and can either unify in a single entity or be part of other Muslim Arab countries nearby.

There are many arguments against Palestinians having a country. They have consistently favored killing civilians in Israel next door and celebrate their sadistic slaughter. They have spent time and resources devoted to building a terrorist infrastructure rather than an economy. They focus their education on demonizing Jews and the destruction of Israel. On a basic political front, they have been unable to reconcile between the two dominant political factions and territories.

The United Nations continues to push for a new Palestinian State, perhaps to balance supporting Israel’s creation in 1948. In the November 1974 General Assembly Resolution 3236 (XXIX), the UN claimed that Palestinians had “The right to national independence and sovereignty;” which is a bold falsehood as described above. No nation has such right and it is highly questionable as to whether Palestinians should have a country.

While no country has an inherent right to exist, the only country which SHOULD definitely exist is the Jewish State of Israel.

When Founding Fathers Are Psychopaths And Cowards (January 2024)

The Failed Palestinian State (December 2023)

Israel Teaches The World About Democracy (March 2023)

Israel And Jews Everywhere Must Be Protected As An Ethnic, Religious And Linguistic Minority (September 2022)

The Lies Conflating the Holocaust and The Promised Land (January 2021)

The Palestinian State I Oppose (April 2018)

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians” (December 2017)

Considering a Failed Palestinian State (July 2015)

The Israeli Peace Process versus the Palestinian Divorce Proceedings (June 2015)

Murderous Governments of the Middle East (August 2014)

The Normalization Deformity: No To Zionism and Peace; Yes To Massacres and Terrorism In a Global Intifada

Posted on January 16, 2024 by First.One.Through

There is a disturbing trend to normalize the hatred of Jews and the Jewish State as well as to normalize the calls for and actual massacres of Jews among extremists.

No To Zionism And Coexistence

The BDS Movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) provides a “anti-normalization guideline” outlining the philosophy for haters of Israel: “Normalization with/of Israel is, then, the idea of making occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism seem normal and establishing normal relations with the Israeli regime instead of supporting the struggle led by the Indigenous Palestinian people to end the abnormal conditions and structures of oppression.” It adds that its mission is not targeting non-Jewish Israelis but “refers to Jewish-Israelis and Jewish-Israeli institutions.”

The anti-normalization camp has a range of views from only opposing the blockade of Gaza, to objecting to the presence of Jews in the West Bank, to rejecting the basic existence of a Jewish State and any Jews in the region.

The far-left’s Democratic Socialist of America is a growing anti-Zionist party in the United States in both numbers and influence. NYC-DSA asked candidates to pledge to never visit Israel, putting the group on the fringe of the extremists. The socialist site Jacobin applauded DSA’s stance which “offers a model for socialist and progressive politicians who want to take on the powerful pro-Israel lobby,” using antisemitic tropes of Jews as powerful puppet-masters.

The DSA’s own “Anti-Zionist Resolution” was greeted with tremendous support by radical jihadi groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement which penned a letter “Do not allow Zionism to be normalized within your organization. We urge the DSA to truly demonstrate its commitments to revolutionary internationalism by upholding anti-Zionism.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a member of the extremist “squad” believes in variants of this twisted approach. He voted against supporting the Israel Relations Normalization Act backing the Abraham Accords in which Israel established peaceful agreements with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. He shockingly argued that Israel’s normalizing relations with Arab countries would actually undermine peace in the region.

Activist Linda Sarsour took the normalization language a step further, and argued that people shouldn’t “humanize the oppressor,” portraying Jews as non-human.

Yes To Massacres and Intifadas

In June 2023, the DSA Tweeted that no Israeli Jews should be viewed as civilians, that all are fair game to be targeted for violence, and simultaneously granted full absolution to Palestinians violently attacking Israeli Jews.

*DSA Tweet in June 2023 arguing that all Israelis are fair game to target*

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY15) immediately responded “Denying Israelis the status of civilians means declaring them fair game for violence and terror. If a naked justification of terror against Israel is not a sign of a demonic double standard against the Jewish State, I am not sure what would be.”

The normalized anti-normalization with Israel and dehumanization of Jews led to immediate celebrations by far-left and jihadi extremists after the October 7 sadistic massacre.

In the following days, the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism wrote a letter to university presidents that it was “horrified by the ubiquity of messaging from our university administrations that has expressed empathy for Israeli life,” essentially blessing the raping and mutilation of Jewish women and burning Jewish families alive.

Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian activist who speaks frequently on college campuses including Princeton, addressed a large march in London in January 2024 and declared “Zionism is apartheid. It’s genocide. It’s murder. It’s a racist ideology rooted in settler expansion and racial domination and we must root it out of the world. We must de-Zionize because Zionism is a death cult. Zionism is indefensible…. Our day will come but we must not be complacent. Our day will come but we must normalize massacres as the status quo.”

The calls for and support for violence have metastasized. Shellyne Rodriguez was fired from Hunter College after chasing a reporter with a machete. She was subsequently hired by Cooper Union which effectively normalized her threatening behavior. It was not a surprise that Jewish students at the school had to barricade themselves a library to avoid a mob after October 7.

The New York group Decolonize This Place, has actively called to “globalize the intifada.” It seeks to hunt diaspora Jews to confront them in their homes, offices and on the streets. Backers of the group like Cooper Union’s Rodriguez have advocated for stopping rent payments to Jews in a new form of BDS of Zionists.

Some people switch back-and-forth between advocating for violence and backing away from it. El-Kurd followed his fiery rhetoric calling for massacres to be normalized tweeting that he misspoke. Another extremist, Manolo De Los Santos from the People’s Forum told NPR that he wouldn’t condemn Hamas’s October 7 attack, but said at an event that he would celebrate the destruction of Israel.

*X feed of Jason Curtis Anderson showing Manolo De Los Santos telling a cheering crowd that the destruction of Israel will be the beginning of the destruction of capitalism everywhere.*

We are watching extremists loudly and proudly declare that their antisemitic and violent attitudes are normal, in a perverted attempt to win supporters. The radical jihadists and alt-left believe that if they can unashamedly strip Jews of their history, heritage, humanity, dignity, rights and property, the closeted antisemites will easily follow suit.

So far, it seems that they are dangerously being proved correct.

The They Keeps Growing

We Normalized Jew-Hatred For Years

The DSA Is Systematically Coming For Zionist Jews

The Global Intifada

Deformity Of Palestinian Culture In America’s Youth

Islamic and Alt-Left Extremists Declare that Normalization With Zionists Is Against Sharia Law

CAIR On October 7 Sadistic Massacre

Eyal Gilad Naftali Klinghoffer. The new Blood Libel.

Know Your Enemies. This Is 1948 Redux

WESPAC, The Charitable Terrorist Supporters In Your Backyard

Palestinian Authority “Martyrs Fund” May Soon Fund Killing Jews in the US and UK

The Holocaust Will Not Be Colorized. The Holocaust Will Be Live.

The Scale And Barbarity Of The Hamas Massacre

I See Dead People

‘The Maiming of the Jew’

Victims of Preference

The Building’s Auschwitz Tattoo

There Is No ‘Genocide’ Against Infrastructure

Posted on January 12, 2024 by First.One.Through

South Africa’s Case For ‘Genocide’

South Africa put forward the charge of ‘genocidal conduct‘ against Israel for its actions in Gaza since October 8, 2023. The reported figure of over 23,000 deaths, over one percent of the population of Gaza, is claimed to show a deliberate intent to wipe out all Arabs in the region. The use of heavy 2,000-pound bombs in civilians neighborhoods is alleged to show a complete disregard for non-combatants as well as a disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force.

Lawyers prosecuting Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) quoted members of the Israeli parliament after the October 7 attack in which they said they wanted to flatten Gaza, encourage a ‘voluntary emigration’ of Arabs from the region, and treat them like the biblical ‘Amalek’, a people for which Jews are commanded to wipe out completely. Counsel argued that comments from leaders shows the government’s official policy for the annihilation of the region’s Arabs.

The United Nations’ International Criminal Court has disallowed Israel from bringing any evidence of the Gazans’ October 7 massacre and brutalization of Israelis, mostly civilians. It contends that even if Hamas committed crimes against humanity, Israel must still adhere to basic rules of war.

The Case Against ‘Genocide’

Genocide involves the deliberate mass killing of an ethnic group or particular nation with the goal of annihilation or ethnically cleansing them.

It is bizarre to bring the charge against Israel based on the situation before even considering the prosecution of the war.

Israel’s attack on Gaza was both reactive and defensive. It had a ceasefire agreement with Hamas which rules Gaza, which Hamas broke with its invasion and sadistic slaughter.
Hamas leaders have pledged to commit the October 7 massacre “again and again.” Israel is compelled to not only bring the estimated 3,000 Gazan perpetrators of the October 7 massacre to justice, as well as the leaders who commanded and supported the operation, but to prevent the atrocities from happening again.
Hamas continues to fire at Israel. Hamas and various factions of this Gaza army continue to fire rockets and wage war against Israel. This is not a situation of a military aggressively hunting civilians but an active battlefield.
Hamas fires from civilian neighborhoods. The battlefield is the neighborhoods of Gaza from which Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other factions of the Gazan army shoot rockets and attack Israel.
Civilian infrastructure is part of the Gazan war effort. The Gazan army and infrastructure is embedded in civilian homes, hospitals, mosques and schools. Arms are stored and tunnel-openings begin in these locations, and are therefore part-and-parcel of the Gazan war effort.
The core Gazan army infrastructure is beneath civilian neighborhoods. The Gazan army runs the majority of its operations below ground, underneath civilian neighborhoods.
The Gazan army doesn’t wear uniforms. Many Palestinian fighters do not wear uniforms to clearly distinguish themselves from civilians, blurring the battlefield between military and civilians.
Israel unilaterally left Gaza completely in 2005. Israel does not covet the land and wanted the region to be a peaceful neighbor where Arabs would have complete self-determination. Instead, Gaza became a terrorist-ruled strip which has waged repeated wars against Israel targeting civilians.
Israel is attempting to save hundreds of hostages. Hamas and other Gazans took 240 hostages, mostly civilians into Gaza, many of whom are children, elderly and infirm. Saving them requires quick action.
The United Nations made no effort to prioritize Israeli hostages. The UN made clear that it would prioritize Gazans from the first day of the war, and would not help Israel in checking on the hostages well being or securing their release, further necessitating immediate and unilateral actions.

Those are just the basic facts which set the scene for which Israel has to prosecute a difficult war. Even with such impossible backdrop, Israel has attempted to avoid the loss of civilian lives.

Millions of text messages sent to Palestinian Arab civilians to get out of harm’s way
Leaflets dropped over neighborhoods to make sure civilians got the message to leave active battlefields.
‘Safe zones’ and escape corridors created for civilians to flee hot spots.
Israel telegraphed its intentions of where it was prosecuting the battle – starting in northern Gaza – to allow civilians to leave, putting its own Israeli soldiers at risk.
The world begged Israel to not launch a ground invasion of Gaza and so relied on air power to start the retaliation against known military targets. It is those aerial assaults that the world now criticizes.

While the world may appreciate the need to dismantle Hamas and the impossible task facing Israel of fighting an enemy which is deeply embedded with civilians, it doesn’t really care. It has no proposals or gameplans to prosecute the war any better, other than demand Israel do so.

*A view of the rubble of buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, October 10, 2023. (Fatima Shbair/AP)*

In regard to Israeli leaders’ commentary that Gazans are like Amalek, a metaphor is not a call to action. Amalek was called out because they attacked the weakest Jews as they left Egypt, just as Hamas and its horde brutally butchered women, children and elderly in 2023. Other Israeli comments that all Gazans are culpable have been made by Palestinian advocates, such as James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute who told the United Nations on June 27, 2023 that there is “tragic deformity in Palestinian political culture,” as the majority of the people prefer violence.

Most importantly, Israel has said it will end the campaign immediately if Hamas surrenders and returns all of the hostages.

Israel is now going house-to-house to rescue its captives and destroy Hamas’s army and infrastructure amid a population which supports Hamas and terrorism. Hamas has 58% of the seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament from democratic elections held in 2006. The majority of Gazans support killing Jewish civilians in Israel and supported the October 7 massacre. They are family and friends of Hamas fighters, their teachers and students, donors and recipients of Hamas aid. When Israelis go through the Gazan neighborhoods in this tight battlefield, the civilians which surround them are the soft layer of the Hamas military which Hamas exploits, not uninvolved spectators.

It is likely that any other army would have killed five times as many Gazans as Israel at this point of the war. It is impossible to know because this war is like no other.

As to the charge of genocide, Palestinian Arabs are not confined to Gaza. Over half the population lives in the West Bank and Israel has not launched a massive campaign there, as Hamas doesn’t have a strong presence and there are no Israeli hostages in that region. On a macro level, 23,000 Gazans out of 1.8 billion Muslims is a 0.001% figure. By way of comparison, 63% of Europe’s Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and about 39% of global Jewry, an actual premeditated deliberate genocide of unarmed civilians.

There are therefore only two considerations to possibly judge Israel: the terrible loss of children’s lives, and the massive destruction of Gazan infrastructure.

Children are innocent by definition. They have no say in the war and not responsible for the terrible actions of adults. Close to 50% of Gazans are under the age of 18, so one would imagine indiscriminate bombing would cause close to 50% of the 23,000 dead to be children, or around 11,500 people. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the number of children killed is about 8,000, or 30% less than expected. While a tragic figure, it defends Israel’s prosecution of the war as being targeted against military targets.

There is no question there is widespread destruction of Gazan infrastructure. Neighborhoods have been leveled all around the Strip. That is a function that those neighborhoods are, and are above, the battlefield. It is actually surprising that a relatively low number of deaths have occurred with so many bombs dropped on the small territory, suggesting a targeted military campaign.

Hamas is sworn to the destruction of Israel and has ruled Gaza unilaterally since 2007 enabling it to embed itself throughout the region. Despite the hostile neighbor next door, Israel has limited its activities against the strip to a blockade to limit the flow of weapons, and to respond when attacked. It has never targeted the region or its residents for annihilation.

It is a tragedy for Palestinian Arabs, for Israel, and the world that so many children in Gaza have died. But the fault remains with the Arab rulers who teach their children death and martyrdom, while they attack Israel from those children’s homes. Israel is trying to minimize those casualties in an impossible battle, and the figures show that it is doing so.

The smoldering rubble of the Gazan battlefield is shocking but there is no genocide of buildings. However, the overall architecture of Gaza’s war mentality and machinery has been enabled by the United Nations, the entity which now sits as judge of Israel’s actions. It is a morbid farce, and must be confronted and rooted out for there to be a prayer of coexistence.

Israelis Targeting Terrorists, Palestinians Targeting Civilians

The Death of Civilians; the Three Shades of Sorrow

Hamas Is The Very Definition Of A Genocidal Group

The Only Way The Conflict Can End

Gazans Support Killing Jewish Civilians

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

Vastly Different Reactions To Two Proposals For “Voluntary Emigration” From Gaza

Regime Reactions to Israel’s “Apartheid” and “Genocide”

The Gaza Red Herring Covering Iran’s Nuclear Breakout

Posted on January 10, 2024 by First.One.Through

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the rounds around the Muslim Middle East and Israel to declare that everyone in the region wants to avoid seeing the Israel-Palestinian War from Gaza spiraling into a regional conflict.

He is completely wrong. It is very much a regional conflict with Iran, and the region wants the Iranian threat addressed.

*Secretary Antony Blinken’s X post that countries want the conflict contained*

Iran has been actively stoking the conflict for years. The Islamist regime has backed the Houthis in Yemen stoking a civil war there, a war against Saudi Arabia next door, and assaulting shipping in the Red Sea. Iran backs Hezbollah in Lebanon which is shelling Israel. It is also one of the main backers of Hamas in Gaza which launched the sadistic atrocities of October 7.

The United States was on the cusp of brokering a deal with Saudi Arabia before October 7, which would have included the United States bringing the oil-rich nation nuclear capabilities, as the U.S. utterly failed to contain Iran’s nuclear program. Saudi Arabia had long made clear that if Iran got nuclear weapons, it would pursue them as well. The U.S. decided to make the best of a horrific situation, and rather than watch the Saudis secure nuclear blueprints and material from North Korea, it offered to supply the Islamist kingdom with the know-how, provided that the kingdom also normalize relations with Israel.

Iran’s nuclear break-out led directly to Saudi’s launching a nuclear program with America’s assistance.

When Israel called up a fighting force of roughly 350,000 people after October 7, it sent 200,000 of them to the Lebanese border, not Gaza. Roughly 100,000 were stationed around the West Bank to contain the various Hamas-allied terrorist groups like Lion’s Den and Jenin Brigades. The smallest segment went to Gaza.

Similarly, Israel did not only evacuate Israeli civilians from the entire area near Gaza on October 8. It also pulled all civilians away from the Lebanese border.

Israel readied for war on many fronts, not just Gaza, to confront Iranian proxies on every side.

Many Israeli military leaders are pushing to launch the battle against Hezbollah in Lebanon now, while 200,000 troops are stationed at the border and the civilians in the region have been evacuated south. They argue that the Iranian proxy with 150,000 missiles pointed at Israel is a threat which must be dealt with proactively and not according to Iran’s timetable.

This war started from Gaza but the conflict centers around Iran. Blinken may believe that the conflict is local and to be contained as he broadcast, or perhaps – hopefully – he toured the region to prepare for destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons in the very near future.