Tag Archives: Palestinian Arabs

Will a Jailed Terrorist or a Terrorist Group Run the Palestinian Authority?

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Mahmoud Abbas still remains the acting president of the Palestinian Authority, having started his four-year term back in 2005. He has refused to hold elections since then, fearing he would lose, and now, sixteen years on and 85 years old, the moment of truth is upon him.

In January 2021, Abbas said that he would hold presidential and parliamentary elections in 2021 even though he has always faired poorly in Palestinian polls. In a two-way race between Abbas (head of the Fatah party) and Ismail Haniyeh of the terrorist group Hamas, it is a toss-up as to who will win. According to the March 2021 PCPSR poll, Abbas would get 47% of the vote to 46% for Haniyeh but the December 2020 poll had Haniyeh with 50% and Abbas at 43%. Other questions in the poll indicated that Palestinians believed that there would be negative ramifications if Hamas was elected which may have helped Abbas’s numbers.

The majority of Palestinians think Abbas is corrupt and want him to step down. Their preferred candidate to replace him is a convicted terrorist named Marwan Barghouti who is serving five life terms in an Israeli jail for the murder of five people during several terrorist attacks. From his cell, Barghouti declared that he is considering a run for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, and if Abbas doesn’t name him as his heir apparent of Fatah, he will run on his own ticket and put forward his own slate for legislative elections.

Seafood Market restaurant in which three Israelis were killed in March 2002 was one of several terrorist attacks attributed to convicted terrorist and one of the leaders of the Second “Intifada,” Marwan Barghouti

According to the same Palestinian poll, should Barghouti run on his own, he gather 48% of the vote, Haniyeh would net 29% and Abbas just 19%.

The polls leave Abbas with a choice: 1) he can run for president and hope that Barghouti doesn’t run and be in a neck-and-neck race with Hamas; 2) run for president and show up last in a three horse race with Barghouti and his slate being victorious; or 3) name Barghouti as his successor and retire.

It seems that Abbas will pick the fourth choice: delay the elections again. That’s an option likely to appeal to the Biden Administration which is trying to donate American taxpayer dollars to the Palestinians, which would likely get complicated if Abbas names a convicted terrorist as head of the Palestinian Authority. But Abbas is 85 years old and should he opt to name a wild card like Mohammad Shtayyeh (who refuses to recognize Israel and endorses the pay-to-slay program) he will likely both be retired and watch Fatah get ousted by Hamas.

The world must ponder what to make of a society that will soon be headed by either a convicted jailed terrorist or the leader of a terrorist organization. Regrettably, it is still unlikely to internalize the reason of why there has been no progress in “peace talks” with Israel.

Related First One Through articles:

NY Times Alternative Facts on Palestinian Elections

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

New York Times Grants Nobel Prize-in Waiting to Palestinian Arab Terrorist

“Mainstream” and Abbas’ Jihad

Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial

The Disappointing 4+6 Abbas Anniversary

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A Tale of Three Palestinian Refugees, With and Without UNRWA

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The Biden Administration announced that it is going to send $150 million of American tax dollars to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. This “temporary” agency was established after the Arab war to destroy Israel in 1948-9, to care for “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” It has continued to extend its mandate for decades, now caring for grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those “persons.”

Several parties voiced their disapproval with the United States’ UNRWA donation. Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said “UNRWA, is among the most corrupt and counterproductive of all UN agencies. President Trump was right to abandon it.” Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan added “We believe that this UN agency for so-called ‘refugees’ should not exist in its current format.“

UNRWA office in Jerusalem. (photo: First One Through)

To consider how the U.N. has handled “so-called ‘refugees'” in this “counterproductive” agency, imagine two Arabs leaving Palestine during the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War. One had come to Palestine from Iraq in 1925 and the other from Syria in 1935, both settling in Jaffa. The Iraqi-Palestinian owned his home and his business and was reluctant to leave everything he had built but concluded that the war zone was too risky and returned to Iraq in 1949. The Syrian-Palestinian was renting his home and worked on a farm outside of town. He returned to Syria early in the war, assuming that the five invading Arab armies would finish the Zionists in short order and he could return to a Jew-free city, maybe even under the flag of Syria.

At war’s end, the Zionists were able to hold onto land – more than suggested under the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan and less than allocated under the British Palestine Mandate – and had no interest in allowing the return of those Arabs which wanted to see Israel destroyed.

The Iraqi-Palestinian Arab decided to abandon his Jaffa home and business and started life anew among his cousins in Iraq. However, the Syrian-Palestinian opted to not start again in his old neighborhood where he lived fifteen years earlier, and instead decided to take the free housing, food, education and medical services offered by the United Nations as part of its UNRWA initiative. His grandchildren continue to live as wards of the world because of that decision.

Another person impacted by the Arab-Israeli War was not an Arab but a Jew. He came to Palestine from Yemen at the end of the 19th century and moved to Jerusalem. The Jordanian army routed him from his home during the war and he returned to Yemen. Not long after, the anti-Semitism in Yemen became intolerable and he and his family moved to Canada.

All three of these individuals were “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict,” but only one got services from UNRWA. The Palestinian Jew and Iraqi-Palestinian Arab each lost their homes and livelihood and were offered nothing from the United Nations. Only the Syrian-Palestinian Arab who chose to not move to his hometown in Syria, became a special grantee class. As long as he and his descendants remained a grantee, there was a U.N. promise that they would get property and/or money from the country which was transforming Jaffa and the surrounding region it controlled into an economic and technological miracle.

Today, the grandchildren of that Palestinian Jew and the Iraqi-Palestinian Arab are both successful businessmen and pay less attention to politics than they do to football. They think about the United Nations as much as they contemplate a hangnail from five years ago.

But the grandchildren of the Syrian-Palestinian have built their entire way of life around the largess of the United Nations and its promise that it will force Israel to hand them money or land as long as they continue to take UNRWA’s free education, medical services and housing. The U.N. is mother’s milk, a teat which has fed their entire family for generations with more gifts to come.

Watching these three “refugees” is an elderly fifth generation Palestinian Arab who had participated in the 1936-9 riots to keep the Jews out of Palestine and lobbied the British to halt their immigration as the Holocaust started in Europe. He headed to Gaza as the first tanks from five Arab armies invaded Israel. His roughly 60km trip from Jaffa to Gaza is about the same as from Manhattan to Stamford, CT. Had there never been a war and he had decided to relocate to Gaza (as several cousins did before the 1948-9 War), he would receive neither cries of empathy nor charity, but today he has over 100 descendants living for free in UNRWA housing around Gaza.

If the U.N. is attempting to resolve the lost property of people who fled the war zone, why should it matter whether they are registered as “refugees” and take services from UNRWA? Shouldn’t the Iraqi-Palestinian Arab and Palestinian Jew be entitled to consideration? Why should the Syrian-Palestinian get so much compensation when he never owned property?

The UNRWA policy leads one to conclude that its goal is not about money and property but to physically relocate a select sub-segment of the persons impacted by the war – only Arabs – into the Jewish State. Such UNRWA policy is in direct conflict with the stated U.N. goal of a two-state solution, one Arab and one Jewish, by injecting nearly 6 million Arabs into the Jewish State. One cannot be simultaneously in favor of two states and maintaining UNRWA.

There are significant issues to consider in the Arab-Israeli Conflict but the matter of Palestinian “refugees” has long been artificially manufactured. It is well past time to shut it down.

Related First One Through articles:

UNRWA Artificially Extends Its Mandate

New Head of UNRWA is Another Hamas-Sympathizer Politician

Palestinian Arabs De-Registering from UNRWA

UNRWA’s Fake Students, Curriculum and Shortfall

The Growth of UNRWA’s “Other” Wards

Stabbing the Palestinian “Right of Return”

The Gross OVER-Staffing of UNRWA Schools

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

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Jim Wolfensohn’s Invisible Generosity

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Jim Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank, died this week. The New York Times wrote about his life’s work in a long obituary. As is commonplace for the legacy paper, it retold his final acts of generosity to conceal the behavior of its Victims of Preference, Palestinian Arabs.

In the concluding sentences of a 2000-word article, the Times wrote the following:

“His last major undertaking was in the mid-2000s as a special envoy for a diplomatic group known as the Quartet — made up of the United Nations, the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union — which was seeking an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in which Israel would disengage from the Gaza Strip. If the deal were struck, he was to help coordinate revitalization efforts once the Palestinian authorities had taken over the area, the U.N. said at the time.

However, the negotiations failed.

“The Middle East,” Mr. Wolfensohn grimly observed, ”turned out to be my mission impossible.”

A casual reader would assume that Wolfensohn was simply one more person who tried to help the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The peace deal described above would have had Israel “disengage from the Gaza Strip” and then his work of coordinating “revitalization efforts” would commence. As “negotiations failed,” Wolfensohn did not actually coordinate any efforts to help the Palestinians.

Not so.

Israel did “disengage from the Gaza Strip” and Wolfensohn coordinated an effort which had Jewish donors around the world buy the Israeli greenhouses and equipment left in Gaza to hand to the Palestinians to jump start their economy. Wolfensohn donated $500,000 of his own money to the purchases.

But the effort proved fruitless. Palestinians looted the greenhouses shortly after the Israelis pulled out of Gaza.

A Palestinian carries a plastic roll he took Tuesday from a greenhouse, background, at the evacuated Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip.Emilio Morenatti / AP

Amid al-Masri, head of the Palestine Economic Development Company’s (PEDC) greenhouse project said the looting “will undermine our efforts to privatise the project as we hoped and also it could frighten investors aiming at other projects.” Indeed, the project designed to restart the Gaza economy once again proved the failure to launch at the start.

James Wolfensohn’s generosity towards the Arabs of Gaza went unmentioned by The New York Times, as to have done so would have required showing the theft and ineptitude of the local population and Palestinian Authority. For the pro-Palestinian legacy media, better to whitewash Arabs shooting themselves in the foot with some generic language about the intractable conflict.

Related First One Through articles:

New York Times Recharacterizes Hamas as a Right-Wing Terrorist Group

For The New York Times, “From the River to the Sea” Is The Chant of Jewish and Christian Zealots

The New York Times All Out Assault on Jewish Jerusalem

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

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NY Times 2000-word obituary for James Wolfensohn

Proposed Lame-Duck Actions for Israel

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In the waning days of the Obama-Biden administration, President Obama decided to stick a finger in the eyes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all Israelis, breaking with decades of U.S. policy allowing UNSC Resolution 2334 to pass, declaring that Israeli Jews living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines was illegal. The action set the stage for various BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movements of Israel around the world.

Now, as the Trump administration heads into its final days, it is also considering some parting actions, following up on its pro-Israel initiatives according to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Below are some recommendations.

At the United Nations

The hostility towards Israel at the United Nations has not abated. While the United States will not be able to get any pro-Israel items through the UN Security Council, it could set markers for future U.S. administrations.

  • Ending Phrase “occupied East Jerusalem” and “Haram al Sharif”. The UN regularly passes resolutions which are incorrect and insulting to the Jewish State. As all of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem were separated in the 1947 UN Partition Plan (which did not pass) and the Jordanian annexation of eastern Jerusalem was illegal, there is no basis for calling the eastern part of the city as “occupied Palestinian territory.” Additionally, only calling Judaism’s most holy location, the Temple Mount, by its Islamic name is insulting. The US should declare that it will automatically oppose any resolution with such flawed verbiage, regardless of the contents of the resolution.
  • Dignity for Jews at the Temple Mount. UN resolutions routinely call for dignity of Palestinians but only security for Jews. They also calls for changing the status quo of Jerusalem but not for the holy sites. This outrage and hypocrisy is disgusting. A call for Jews to be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount at specific times just as the Muslims and Jews share the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron should be clearly articulated.
  • Biased Supporter of Israel. The Palestinians complain the United States is not a neutral mediator in trying to resolve the conflict. It should not be. Not only is Israel a strong American ally but the Palestinians have not abandoned the incitement and reward for terrorism. Further, until the UN stops singling out Israel in its resolutions, the U.S. should make abundantly clear that it will stand with Israel in the global forum and not pressure Israel into any concessions with the Palestinian Authority.

Refugees

The situation of Palestinian “refugees” going on for generations and not having self-determination must end. It is bad for the Palestinians and is bad for the peace process which cannot move forward as it undermines the very basis of two states for two people.

  • Prepare the Compensation Mechanism. UNGA Resolution 194 which passed in 1948, sought to bring refugees who fled the war back to their homes or compensate them for their losses, provided they were willing to live in peace with Israel. Many wars, intifadas, electing a Holocaust denier to the presidency and a terrorist group to the majority of parliament long sealed the fate of how this would play out. It is time to begin tabulating the compensation for ALL Palestinians who fled from the war (not just those under the UNRWA mandate). Similarly, compensation for the Jews who fled from Arab lands should also be calculated.
  • Demand Self-Determination Now. Every person as a human right to self-determination. The Palestinians who live in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan (even though almost all of them were born in those countries) should be granted citizenship and full rights in each respective country immediately. The people who live in Gaza, Areas A and B under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority should be able to vote in Palestinian elections, and all people – Jew and Arab – who live in Area C should be allowed to vote in Israel, if and until other dynamics change that administrative equation.
  • Dissolve UNRWA. The unique agency for Palestinians is bloated in terms of funding and personnel compared to the global UNHCR and foments hatred for the Jewish State. It’s duties should be folded into UNHCR immediately and ultimately the need for the group disappears with the actions taken above.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem has been home for the three monotheistic religions for over a thousand years, and only under the Modern State of Israel have all religions been able to live and pray in their holy city.

  • More Jewish homes. While the city has blossomed, it has done so very unevenly. The Arab population continues to grow dramatically (counter to the false claims that Israel is ‘ethnically cleansing’ the city), with the Arab population growing 38% between 2000 and 2010 and then 29% between 2010 and 2018. Meanwhile the Jewish population in the city only grew by 12% and 13% in those time periods, respectively. All of the growth for Jews was from births as there was actually a net migration out of the city of thousands of people (6,000 in 2018 alone) because of limited housing and costs. The US should support the building of additional homes in and around Jerusalem.
Muslim population of 196,900; 272,000; 349,600 and 439,600; 491,800; 555,800 for Jews

Security

Israel has the terrorists group Hezbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza at its borders. Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which supports both groups, has threatened to wipe Israel off of the map. The Obama administration gave over $100 billion to Iran and a legal pathway to nuclear weapons threating the survival of Israel.

  • Bunker Busters. The United States is one of the few countries that has the weaponry to blast underground facilities. These armaments should be sold to Israel to enable it to deal with the nuclear facilities in Iran and the missiles in Lebanon.
  • Palestinian Terrorists. The US should make clear that no terrorist group will be allowed in a Palestinian government. Should any group not give up all weapons to the Palestinian Authority and commit to recognize Israel in becoming part of a Palestinian government, the US should cease all aid in all forms to the Palestinians, and label the PA itself a terrorist group.
  • Terrorism in Territories. The State Department under the Obama administration gave scant attention to terrorism that was not committed in Israel proper. Such approach fueled additional terror. It is bad enough when the UN and BBC blame the victims, but the US should make clear that any and all terrorism committed anywhere is appalling and commit to fighting terrorism aggressively, something the Obama administration only did for other countries.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism is found throughout the world both in official laws and in civilian actions. The United States should encourage other countries to join Israel in routing this global scourge.

  • Jews Should Never Be Banned. The world has a long history of placing Jews in ghettoes and determining where they can and cannot live. It’s a disgrace. Israel is not the world’s Pale of Settlement and Jews should be allowed to live and work anywhere. Anti-settlements is anti-Semitism in its core and should be called out as such. The U.S. should call on all governments to condemn the notion of “Judaizing” a neighborhood, regardless of where it is located.
  • Anti-Kosher/Halal and Anti-Circumcision Bills. Many governments are advancing laws targeting Jews and Muslims, making it impossible to live peacefully as neighbors. The U.S. should be a beacon of openness by calling out anti-circumcision and anti-ritual slaughter laws which are thinly-veiled methods of getting rid of Jews and Muslims.

Overall, the Trump administration should recommit to the 2004 President Bush letter to Ariel Sharon which gave Israel assurances to take risks for peace. The formula led Israel to give up Gaza which rapidly became a hotbed for radical Islam and terrorism. There is no chance Israel will take any future actions to make additional concessions to the PA which not only give it moral support but guarantees for its dignity and security.

The politeness of politics catering to anti-Semites has hindered the promotion of Jewish rights for too long. The Trump administration can still take actions to right these historical wrongs.

Related First One Through articles:

How the US and UN can Restart Relations with Israel

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Squeezing Zionism

Anti-“Settlements” is Anti-Semitism

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Palestinian Actions Matter

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There is a new placard being burnished around the world. It calls for justice and an end to the hatred and excuses for the racist, misogynistic, antisemitic and homophobic actions of Palestinian Arabs. #PalestinianActionsMatter

Foundational Charters and Laws

  • The Palestinian Authority (PA) has a law that calls for capital punishment for any Arab that sells land to a Jew
  • The foundational charter of one of the major Palestinian political parties, Hamas, is the most evil and anti-Semitic charter ever written, with calls to destroy Israel and kill Jews
  • The PA publishes anti-Semitic textbooks for children in school that demonizes Jews, claims they have no connection to the holy land, and glorifies “martyrs”
  • Palestinian colleges ban Jews – even anti-Zionist Jews who argue for their cause – from visiting on campuses
  • PA law excuses the honor killings of women who shame Arab families
  • When Arabs controlled Hebron, they refused to allow Jews from climbing above the seventh step to the Cave of the Jewish Patriarchs
  • Arabs still refuse to allow Jews to pray at their holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount
  • When Arabs seized control of the Old City of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in 1949, they expelled every Jew
  • After the Arabs from Transjordan united with the Arabs in Judea and Samaria, they specifically banned any Jew from becoming a citizen in 1954.

Elected Leadership

People

  • The Palestinian population are the most anti-Semitic in the world, estimated at 93% of the people
  • Since the Palestinians gained control of Gaza, they launched three wars (2008, 2012 and 2014), fired thousands of rockets at Israeli cities, and dug tunnels to penetrate Israel for attacks, rather than build an economy
  • Palestinians set fire to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus and painted the dome green, the color of Islam
  • Palestinian Arabs have routinely been killing Israeli civilians while the Jews shop, ride the bus, eat pizza or celebrate Passover
  • Palestinians routinely go on television and say that Jews are greedy and love money over everything
  • Parents of terrorists flock to the media to declare how proud they are of their children who kill Jews

The world is waking up to the systemic racism and antisemitism of Palestinians with calls to defund the Palestinian Authority and questions whether yet an additional Arab state in the region should be created which has been instilled with such a toxic culture.

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

Palestinians are “Desperate” for…

The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

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

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The 1967 War Created Both the “West Bank” and the Notion of a Palestinian State

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The area east of the Armistice Lines struck between Israel and Jordan in 1949 is commonly referred to as the “West Bank.” It only got that moniker after Israel took the area in June 1967.

Timeline to Naming the “West Bank”

After Israel’s war of Independence in 1948-9, the United Nations did not have a specific name for that region.

When Jordan annexed the area on April 24, 1950, only the United Kingdom, Iraq and Pakistan recognized Jordan’s actions while the rest of the world rejected it. After that time, during the years 1950 through 1958, the United Nations used various terms for that area which were tied to either Jordan or the Jordan River:

  • “west bank of the river in Arab Palestine” (1951)
  • “the area west of the Jordan River” (1952)
  • “West Jordan” (1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958)
  • “the western bank” (1952)
  • “Western Jordan” (1951, 1952)
  • “that part of Jordan west of the Jordan River” (1956)
  • “west bank of the Jordan” (1957)

Then, in 1959, the United Nations seemed to embrace the Jordanian annexation, referring to the area simply as “Jordan,” no different than the eastern part of the kingdom. To the extent that the UN wanted to specifically call out that area it used wordy terms:

  • “Jordan side of the armistice demarcation line”
  • “frontier villagers in Jordan”

That all changed after Jordan attacked Israel in June 1967 and lost the region. By the end of that month, the United Nations quickly moved to shorthand (A/6713) by the third mention:

  • “the West Bank of the Jordan”
  • “West Bank area of the Jordan”
  • “West Bank”

This shortened version for that area east of the 1949 Armistice Line has stuck since that time.

The “West Bank”

Jordan

Israel
Seized the land in an offensive war against Israel in 1949 Took the land in a defensive war against Jordan in 1967
Annexed the land within a year Only annexed eastern Jerusalem thirteen years later
Only three countries recognized the annexation For fifty years, no country recognized the reunification of Jerusalem until the United States in December 2017
No country suggested boycotting Jordan for its illegal annexation Several countries have boycotted Israel since its re-establishment in 1948, even before taking eastern Jerusalem and the “West Bank”
Jordan expelled all Jews from the area, including the Old City of Jerusalem Israel did not expel anyone; many Palestinians who had taken Jordanian citizenship moved to Jordan
Jordan granted Arabs but not Jews citizenship within four years of annexation Israel immediately gave all people in Jerusalem – Arab and Jew alike – the option to apply for citizenship
The UN ultimately referred to the area as part of Jordan The UN to this day uses the term “East Jerusalem” even though such entity only existed between 1949 and 1967 as an artifice of war
The UN never called the region “West Bank” The UN only calls it the “West Bank” and “East Jerusalem”
The UN never called it “occupied Palestinian territory” The UN only calls it “Occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem”

The United Nations applied a complete double standard to the “West Bank” and eastern Jerusalem when controlled by Jordan and then by Israel.

Timeline to Recommending Distinct Palestinian State

The United Nations General Assembly voted in favor of independent Jewish and Arab states in November 1947. Many countries recognized the enlarged frontiers of Israel’s border after it accumulated more land at the end of its war of independence of 1948-9.

United Nations proposed borders for the Jewish State in 1947 were much smaller than countries ultimately recognized two years later (inset map)

For eighteen years from 1949 to 1967, the United Nations considered Palestinian refugees living in the “West Bank” of Jordan as temporary residents who were waiting to move back to homes in Israel and take on Israeli citizenship. Together with their fellow Arab neighbors in the “West Bank” who were not refugees, they all took on Jordanian citizenship in 1954. For the United Nations, there was no plan for a Palestinian state until 1967; there were Palestinian Arab refugees who were to become Israelis and there were Jordanians (those who had lived in the “West Bank” before Israel’s war of independence.) The self-determination of the local Arabs was manifest in Jordan and the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization fought that narrative. The PLO’s founding charter in 1964 sought to create a new Arab State of Palestine in the ENTIRETY of the British Mandate, and to eradicate the Zionist state. It was not a two-state solution, but the same zero Jewish state solution which remained the consistent goal in the Arab world.

Only when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat came to Israel in 1977 to forge peace was the notion of two states considered a reality anywhere in the Arab world. In his speech he called for:

  • “Ending the occupation of the Arab territories occupied in 1967. [Note: Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula in 1967 and wanted it back]
  • Achievement of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, including their right to establish their own state.
  • The right of all states in the area to live in peace within their boundaries, their secure boundaries, which will be secured and guaranteed through procedures to be agreed upon, which will provide appropriate security to international boundaries in addition to appropriate international guarantees.”

The United Nations began to consider an independent Palestinian State in 1967 and the Arab world began to consider a Jewish State in 1977. The Jordanians gave up claim to the “West Bank” in 1988 and Palestinians slowly came to recognize Israel in the Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995.

The move towards a “two-state solution” began to unravel with the Palestinian Second Intifada from September 2000 to February 2005, followed by the election of the terrorist group Hamas to the majority of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 and their subsequent takeover of Gaza in 2007. When the Palestinian Authority sought to enter a unity government with Hamas in 2014, the U.S.-brokered peace talks officially collapsed.

As we approach the 53rd anniversary of the 1967 war and consider Israel’s possible application of sovereignty to parts of Area C in the West Bank which are officially under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords signed by the Palestinians, it is worth noting that the world has already accepted Israel expanding its borders in a defensive war in 1949 and did not even consider the need for another Arab state in the region until 1967. There are many pathways to local Arab self-determination, and currently proposed initiatives do not terminate that aspiration.

Related First One Through articles:

When You Understand Israel’s May 1948 Borders, You Understand There is No “Occupation”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II Fights to Retain His Throne

Maybe Truman Should Not Have Recognized Israel

“Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”

Recognition of Acquiring Disputed Land in a Defensive War

The Peace Proposal Monologues

A Response to Rashid Khalidi’s Distortions on the Balfour Declaration

I call BS: You Never Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital

Arabs in Jerusalem

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The anthem of Israel is JERUSALEM

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For Ramadan and Israel’s Independence Day, Palestinians and Israelis Call For Jewish Prayer on The Temple Mount

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Unfortunately, just a dream.

On April 28, 2020, as Israelis marked the solemn day of mourning for 23,816 soldiers killed in wars against Arab nations which refused to accept the country’s existence, and another 4,166 victims of terrorist attacks at the hands of Arabs who could not coexist with Jews, The New York Times wrote about a group of Palestinians and Israelis who chose to mark that day with a call for peace.

The Times piece “Palestinians and Israelis Use Mourning to Mull Peace,” described how several tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinian Arabs came together online in a grassroots call for peace. It was written as a note for optimism in the face of mourning. The Times said that the United Nations Middle East envoy “praised the participants in the alternative ceremony.” An interesting choice of words, suggesting that mourning for the murdered is inconsistent with desiring peace. Is Israel’s Memorial Day uniquely offensive to the world and the “alternative” is praise-worthy?

I would be more optimistic if tens of thousands of Arabs used the Palestinian Authority’s “Independence Day” holiday on November 15 in such a vocal support of peace with Israel.

I would be encouraged if tens of thousands of Muslims would use Eid al-Adha, the holiday marking the day that Abraham – the father of Jews, Arabs and monotheism – went to offer his son at the place that became the cornerstone of the Jewish Temple, as a call to welcome Jewish brothers onto the Temple Mount so they could once again pray at the holiest place for Judaism.

I would be excited if hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs would use this time of Ramadan and the 72nd anniversary of Israel’s independence, to acknowledge the Jewish people’s history and rights to live throughout the holy land and call for the Palestinian Authority to abolish the law for capital punishment for any Arab that sells land to a Jew.

Until then, using this day of pain for the Jewish State as a cheap marketing ploy to wash the blood from the hands of Arab murderers to absolve their culpability is yet one more layer of callousness by the participants, the United Nations and The New York Times.

Related First One Through articles:

The Cancer in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

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The Shrapnel of Intent

The Palestinian State I Oppose

In Defense of Foundation Principles

Dignity for Israel: Jewish Prayer on the Temple Mount

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Hamas Charter, Articles 3 and 4

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The Hamas Charter‘s first two articles articulate the movement as the embodiment of Islam. It then continues in a more sinister vein:

Structure and Formation

Article Three:

The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Moslems who have given their allegiance to Allah whom they truly worship, – “I have created the jinn and humans only for the purpose of worshipping” – who know their duty towards themselves, their families and country. In all that, they fear Allah and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.

“But we will oppose truth to vanity, and it shall confound the same; and behold, it shall vanish away.” (Prophets – verse 18).

Article Four:

The Islamic Resistance Movement welcomes every Moslem who embraces its faith, ideology, follows its programme, keeps its secrets, and wants to belong to its ranks and carry out the duty. Allah will certainly reward such one.

Hamas is not only a religious movement based on the principals of Islam, it is only open to Muslims. It opposes any coexistence, as it seeks “to raise the banner of Jihad… [to] rid the land of the [non-Muslim] uncleanliness, vileness and evils.”

And the Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to 58% of the parliament with this charter, the United Nations pushes for Hamas to be part of a unity government, and the media talks of “Islamic resistance” as a peaceful and natural endeavor.

Khaled Mashaal (1956-) in 2009 (photo credit: AP/Nader Daoud)

Related First One Through articles:

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #1

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #2

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #3

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

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

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

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

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Hamas Charter, Articles 1 and 2

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An analysis of the Hamas Charter reveals an undeniable truth: that its mission is a religious war of Islam against the Jews.

The first two FirstOneThrough analyses reviewed the charter’s introductory statements. Now it will review the actual articles of the charter, two at a time.

Definition of the Movement

Ideological Starting-Points

Article One:

The Islamic Resistance Movement: The Movement’s programme is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man. It resorts to it for judgement in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps.

The Islamic Resistance Movement’s Relation With the Moslem Brotherhood Group:

Article Two:

The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

While the introductory statement to the charter targets Jews as Hamas’s adversary, stating “they [the Jews] are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found” and “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious,” the first articles anchor the Hamas movement directly with Islam.

Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, (1947-2004) co-founder of Hamas

The Hamas program embraces all Islamic concepts, seeking to spread Islam and convert people to Islam. It is not a movement about self-determination, dignity, economic viability, land or peoplehood, but a devoutly religious movement which seeks to sweep through “Palestine” (which will be clearly defined as the entirety of the region throughout the charter) ridding the land of non-Muslims.

And the Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to 58% of the parliament with this charter, the United Nations pushes for Hamas to be part of a unity government, and the media talks of “Islamic resistance” as a peaceful and natural endeavor.

Related First One Through articles:

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #1

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #2

Palestineism is Toxic Racism

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

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

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

Collective Guilt / Collective Punishment

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

Opinion: Remove the Causefire before a Ceasefire

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Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis and FirstOneThrough

Hamas Charter, Opening Remarks

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The Hamas Charter was crafted in 1988 and comes in at over 9,000 words. It is affectionately called by its drafters “The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement,” and has predominantly been read only by its supporters. That is unfortunate, as it is important for all people to understand the nature of Hamas and its deeply-held antisemitic beliefs.

Over the course of the next couple of months, I will share the charter one section at a time and reveal why every single country in the world should sever any and all ties with the group and demand that it never be allowed to participate in any future elections, let alone become part of a unity government.

Opening

The Covenant
of the
Islamic Resistance Movement

18 August 1988

In The Name Of The Most Merciful Allah

“Ye are the best nation that hath been raised up unto mankind: ye command that which is just, and ye forbid that which is unjust, and ye believe in Allah. And if they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors. They shall not hurt you, unless with a slight hurt; and if they fight against you, they shall turn their backs to you, and they shall not be helped. They are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah, and a treaty with men; and they draw on themselves indignation from Allah, and they are afflicted with poverty. This they suffer, because they disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew the prophets unjustly; this, because they were rebellious, and transgressed.” (Al-Imran – verses 109-111).

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

“The Islamic world is on fire. Each of us should pour some water, no matter how little, to extinguish whatever one can without waiting for the others.” (Sheikh Amjad al-Zahawi, of blessed memory).

The opening of the charter quotes three sources, the first coming for a religious text (Al-Imran), the second coming from the founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood (Hassan al-Banna) and the third from an Islamic scholar from Iraq (Amjad al-Zahawi). As the opening line of the charter which calls out “Allah” makes clear, Hamas’s goal is to fuse Islam with modern politics. Such is the Muslim Brotherhood mission in every country in which it operates.

When it comes to Israel, Hamas wants political Islam to be the front line in a jihad against the Jews.

The Religious Text

The sentences “they who have received the scriptures had believed, it had surely been the better for them: there are believers among them, but the greater part of them are transgressors… they suffer, because they disbelieved the signs of Allah, and slew the prophets unjustly; this, because they were rebellious, and transgressed” is about Jews, not Israelis. It is the Jews who received the scriptures but not did believe in the prophets who later came into the world like Mohammed. While there was hope that some Jews would convert to Islam, the majority did not and are considered sinners.

These Jews are not simply “transgressors” for not believing in Allah and Mohammed, they are evil according to the verses, “smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found.” This is tenet of these Islamic scriptures as well as Hamas which selected these specific lines, that all Jews are inherently vile.

But the text offers a way out for the Jews, even today, if “they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah, and a treaty with men.” Although the Jews are not worthy, they can find “security” only under Islam.

So opens the Hamas Charter. Not with aspirations for their own people. Not with a desire for independence and dignity. Not with a desire for a homeland or peace. It is a screed against the Jews.

The Muslim Brotherhood

After quoting scriptures, Hamas made clear that its roots are with the Muslim Brotherhood by quoting its founder. Tellingly, the verse chosen was not about the goal of binding Islam and sharia law into modern politics, but about the Jewish State.


Imam Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood

“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it“ builds on the theme of the the opening prayer: Israel is the political manifestation of the vile Jews. It is a holy war obligation for Muslims to obliterate the Jewish State completely, as its existence is an affront to Islam.

The goal of Hamas is to destroy Israel, more than to establish a state for Arabs. To do so is an Islamic religious obligation.

A Religious Scholar

To conclude the opening section of the “Islamic Resistance Movement,” the Hamas drafters quoted a religious scholar. not a local imam from Palestine but one from Iraq.

“The Islamic world is on fire. Each of us should pour some water,” is a call for a global jihad against Israel. The aim of Hamas is that EVERY Muslim around the world SHOULD play a part in confronting the Jewish State.

The opening of the Hamas Charter is a call for global jihad for all Muslims to eradicate the State of Israel and purge the land of the vile Jews, not a call for Arab dignity, peace or independence.

And the Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to 58% of the parliament, the United Nations pushes for Hamas to be part of a unity government, and the media talks of “Islamic resistance” as a peaceful and natural endeavor.

Related First One Through articles:

Palestineism is Toxic Racism

Educating the New York Times: Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood

What do you Recognize in the Palestinians?

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

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

Collective Guilt / Collective Punishment

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

Opinion: Remove the Causefire before a Ceasefire

Subscribe YouTube channel: FirstOneThrough

Join Facebook group: Israel Analysis and FirstOneThrough