The current smear against Israel being popularized by anti-Zionist organizations and people is that the country practices a form of apartheid. Specifically, they consider that Israel discriminates against and segregates its non-Jewish population.
Not only is the charge absurd, but it is a deliberate attempt to deflect the anti-Semitism and xenophobia of the Palestinian Arab population.
Ban on citizenship
At inception, Israel granted all of the people who lived in the land citizenship, and as the country annexed additional territory such as the eastern section of Jerusalem, it afforded all residents there to apply for citizenship as well, regardless of religion. Today, roughly 74% of the country is Jewish, with over one quarter belonging to other faiths. It stands as a uniquely diverse country in the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
This is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The president of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, declared that “we will not see the presence of a single Israeli (read Jew) – civilian or soldier -on our land.” Indeed, in the lands administered by the PA – Gaza and Areas A and B – the demographics is 100% Arab. Not a single Jew can be found, per the PA’s anti-Semitic stated mission.
Ban minorities buying land
Israel allows everyone to purchase homes or apartments. In Jerusalem, the Israeli government greatly expanded the number of homes for non-Jews which resulted in a +188% growth in units for Arabs between 1990 and 2019, compared to only +64% for Jews.
This is in sharp contrast to the PA which has kept in place a Jordanian law which bans the sale of land to non-Jews. The penalty for doing so can be hard labor or even death. It has produced a terrible scheme where Arabs who want to sell land to Jews are forced to use middlemen and shell companies to avoid being killed by either the government of fellow Arabs’ vigilante anti-Semitic violence.
Ban minorities voting and being in parliament
All Israeli citizens can vote and run for the parliament. There are a few Israeli Arab parties in the country’s multi-party system. In 2022, an Arab party sits in the governing coalition and can collapse the government should it decide to do so.
As the Palestinian Authority has no Jews, it is not surprising that there are no Jews in parliament.
Ban minorities being prime minister
Israel has no religion litmus test as to who can become prime minister. That is compared to surrounding Arab countries like Syria where the PM must be a Muslim.
Ban minorities being judges
Israel allows all of its citizens to be part of the legal system including being lawyers, judges and using the courts. The Jewish State has an Arab sitting on its Supreme Court.
The PA has no place for Jews. Anywhere.
Ban minorities being in army
Israel has a draft system which calls on its citizens to serve in the army at age 18. However, the country does not enforce the law for Arabs and Ultra-Orthodox Jews, but it welcomes them joining.
The PA has no place for Jews.
Ban on religious houses of worship
Israel allows all of the various religions to practice their faiths openly. There is no ban on minarets on mosques (as exists in Switzerland), no ban on halal meat (as exists in Iceland), no ban on burkas or hijabs (as exists in Turkey). The Bahai faith has major houses of worship and the Israeli government actually helped Mormons build their church in Jerusalem.
The PA is only oriented around Arab Muslims and Christians. In Jordan – which is majority Palestinian – the Bahai faith is outlawed and Jews carrying religious articles are turned away at the border.
Ban minorities visiting holy places
Israel allows people of all religions to access their holy places. The Israeli government reversed the Muslim ban on Jews visiting the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, as well as the Cave of the Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs in Hebron when it took the city back from Jordanian Arabs in 1967.
Palestinian Arabs (who were Jordanians from 1954 to 1967) had banned Jews from their holy sites. The PA and Jordan continue to try to limit Jews from visiting Judaism’s holiest site to this day. Palestinian Arabs have also ransacked Jewish holy sites under their control, such as the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus.
Ban minorities praying at holy places
When Israel reunified Jerusalem in 1967 after Jordan attacked it, it nevertheless allowed the Jordanian waqf to administer the Jewish Temple Mount. That decision has caused Jews to continue to be banned from praying at its site while hundreds of thousands of Muslims are able to do so multiple times a day.
When Jews visit their holy sites in or adjacent to PA-ruled territories, they must have security details or be lynched by Arabs.
Ban minorities from universities
Israel’s leading universities such as Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University have large populations of non-Jews. In sharp contrast, no Jews attend Palestinian universities, and some have a history of banning Jews – even anti-Zionist ones – from even stepping foot on campus.
Ban or limit free speech and assembly for minorities
All Israeli citizens have freedom of speech, assembly and press. Israeli Arabs often launch demonstrations against the government, as do other minorities. In Gaza, only one opinion is allowed to be expressed – that sanctioned by the Islamist regime of Hamas.
Denial of minority history and culture
The Israeli government acknowledges the backgrounds, cultures and history of its diverse citizens. It teaches various histories in its schools and posts official signs in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Meanwhile the PA only uses Arabic in all official communications and actively denies the history of Jews in their holy land, including that their holy temples were in Jerusalem.
Government inciting violence against minorities
Israel is a pluralistic society with Jews and non-Jews participating in each part of society. However, the PA is effectively at war with Jews and the Jewish State and calls on Arabs to attack Jews.
Government reward murderers of minorities
Israel prosecutes criminals that commit crimes – past presidents and prime ministers have gone to jail.
The PA actually rewards criminal activity, especially violence committed against Jews. It calls the terrorists “martyrs” and names schools and squares after them, while paying their families thousands of dollars.
Major political parties’ xenophobia
The Israeli declaration of independence welcomed all people and to this day. The major Israeli political parties including Likud, Yesh Atid, and Blue and White all have charters and position papers that advance a just society for all citizens.
The Palestinian constitution is written for Arabs, with Islam as the official religion. Hamas, a designated terrorist organization by many countries, has a charter full of anti-Semitic smears and conspiracy theories. It calls for a war between Jews and Muslims.
Xenophobia and racism of population
Palestinian Arabs voted the anti-Semitic Hamas political-terrorist party to 58% of the parliament the last time elections were held, and polls show that Hamas would win presidential elections, if held today. The Anti-Defamation League did a poll in 2014 that showed that Palestinian Arabs were the most anti-Semitic in the world, with 93% holding anti-Semitic beliefs.
Israel has created a liberal democracy in the heart of the xenophobic and anti-Semitic Middle East. Those calling the country an apartheid state are not merely engaging in anti-Semitic lies, but doing so in the hope of drawing attention away from the deeply anti-Semitic and xenophobic beliefs of Palestinian Arabs.
Palestinian-American Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) submitted a bill to congress to commemorate the ‘Nakba’, or ‘catastrophe’ of the reestablishment of the Jewish State shortly after the Holocaust, in which Palestinian Arabs who waited for the destruction of Israel were refused reentry into the country. Below is a review of H.Res.1123 Recognizing the Nakba and Palestinian refugees’ rights, submitted on May 16, 2022.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) talking at the Democratic Socialists of America event in 2021 where she said Jews control people and profit off of racism
“Ms. Tlaib (for herself, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, Ms. McCollum, Ms. Newman, Mr. Bowman, and Ms. Bush) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs“
It should be noted that two of the co-sponsors of the resolution, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, represent the tri-state New York area, home to the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel. That these two members of congress continue to have seats says much about the Jewish community prioritizing Israel or bothering to pressure their representatives about Israel.
“Whereas the United Nations General Assembly recommended on November 29, 1947, to partition Palestine into two states against the wishes of Palestine’s majority indigenous inhabitants;“
At the time of the UNGA resolution, Palestine was less than 60% Arab and it would have been closer to 50% had the British not instituted the 1939 White Paper at the behest of local Arabs, preventing 100,000 Jews from fleeing the Holocaust in Europe, resulting in their deaths.
“Whereas this partition plan nevertheless provided for the “Full protection for the rights and interests of minorities, including the protection of the linguistic, religious and ethnic rights of the peoples and respect for their cultures, and full equality of all citizens with regard to political, civil and religious matters”;”
After rejecting the partition plan, Tlaib nevertheless embraces some positions, even while misunderstanding them completely. Israel did protect the rights of all, granting citizenship to everyone. This is in sharp contrast to the Arab nations of Transjordan and Egypt who illegally seized the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza, respectively, and ethnically-cleansed all Jews from those lands. Transjordan renamed itself Jordan with its newest illegal land, and then granted citizenships ONLY to Arabs in 1954, specifically excluding Jews. [1954 Jordanian Citizenship Law, article 3]
“Whereas before the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, there were already between 250,000 to 300,000 Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled from their homes often after attacks by Zionist militias on major Palestinian cities and villages;”
The Civil War for the land of Palestine was not about “attacks by Zionist militias” against unarmed civilians as portrayed by Tlaib but between warring parties of which the Arabs were much better armed and had initiated the fighting. In terms of people fleeing, there were Jews who fled the battle scenes too. The figure of “250,000 to 300,000” is preposterous as well. That many people fled the land to places like London and Canada or Jordan and Syria? If they stayed inside of the British Mandate boundaries, they cannot be considered refugees going from one town to another.
Palestinian Arabs mark Nakba Day 2013 with calls for violence in Bethlehem, a city Israel handed to the Palestinian Authority in 1995 as part of the Oslo Accords (photo: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
“Whereas by the time the war ended with the signing of armistice agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab countries in 1949, establishing Israel’s sovereignty over 78 percent of Palestine, and, in the process, conquering an additional 23 percent of Palestine beyond those areas allocated to the Jewish state under the partition plan, there were at least 750,000 Palestinian refugees (roughly 75 percent of the indigenous population that had lived in areas that became Israel);”
Israel was established on 22 percent LESS of Palestine than afforded it under the international mandate. The Arabs rejected the partition plan and it was never implemented so why does Tlaib reference it here at all, other than to make it sound that Israelis got more when indeed they got less.
In terms of the total number of refugees, the figure thrown about includes people who moved a few miles away to Gaza and what later became known as the ‘West Bank.’ If those areas were part of ‘Palestine’, then those people are called ‘internally-displaced’, not refugees. To be clear, there were about 770,000 Arab Muslims in the Mandate in 1931, a figure which jumped to 1.056 million in 1945, a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.3%. Extrapolating that number would suggest a total Arab Muslim population of 1.182 million in 1950. However, the actual figure for Arab Muslims in 1950 in Israel, Gaza and the ‘West Bank’ was 1.015 million, or 167,000 fewer than anticipated. Using the same approach for Christians who grew at a 3.0% CAGR from 1931 to 1945 would have produced 164,000 Christians in 1950, instead of the 65,000 actually in the region in that year, or 99,000 fewer people. That means that the total number of actual refugees that left Mandate Palestine was 267,000 of which 37% were Christians, many fleeing a religious war between Muslims and Jews (not because of the creation of Israel).
“Whereas, by 1949, Israel had depopulated more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities, often demolishing all structures, planting forests over them, or repopulating them with Jewish Israelis;”
Tlaib’s anti-Semitism is made clear: she makes all Arabs appear as indigenous and true ‘Palestinians’ when hundreds of thousands of Jews lived in the land as Palestinian Jews. She ignored the fact that the government of Israel gave citizenship to all Arabs who remained with full rights. She ignored the fact that the Arabs started the war against the small and weak Jews in their midst. She ignored the Arab ransacking of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. Instead, she calls out “Jewish Israelis” who took Palestinian villages.
“Whereas Palestinians refer to this experience of uprooting, dispossession, and refugeedom as the Nakba (meaning “catastrophe” in English);”
The Palestinians rejected coexistence proposed in the partition plan, then launched and lost a war because they wanted to live in a Jew-free land. It’s Arab attitude that is a Nakba.
Palestinian Arabs rip down and burn Israeli flags on Nakba Day (photo: Menahem Kahana / AFP / Getty Images)
“Whereas the Nakba refers not only to a historical event but to an ongoing process of Israel’s expropriation of Palestinian land and its dispossession of the Palestinian people that continues to this day through the establishment and expansion of approximately 300 illegal settlements and outposts in the occupied Palestinian West Bank in which approximately 674,000 Israelis reside as of 2020;”
The Nakba-attitude of rejecting coexistence is definitely an “ongoing process.” Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 and Israel re-took the land in a defensive battle. Arab armies launched a war in 1973 on Judaism’s holiest day of Yom Kippur. Palestinian terrorists hijacked airplanes and killed Jews all over the world. And not only Jews – consider Palestinian assassination of US Senator Robert Kennedy. Arabs launched multi-year pogroms killing thousands of Jewish civilians in the 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000’s.
And of course, Palestinians reject Jews moving back to their holiest city of Jerusalem, and pretend there is a “Palestinian West Bank”. In truth, there are lands that Israel gave to the Palestinian Authority – Gaza, and Areas A and B – where Palestinian Arabs have self-determination, of course, as is their desire, in land devoid of a single Jew.
“Whereas the United States knew of the scale and magnitude of the Palestine refugee crisis as it unfolded, as is documented in an October 1948 telegram to the President and Secretary of State from the Embassy of the United States to Israel, warning that the “Arab Refugee tragedy is rapidly reaching catastrophic proportions and should be treated as a disaster”;”
The United States State Department stated clearly that Arabs started the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli War: “Fighting began with attacks by irregular bands of Palestinian Arabs attached to local units of the Arab Liberation Army composed of volunteers from Palestine and neighboring Arab countries. These groups launched their attacks against Jewish cities, settlements, and armed forces… On the eve of May 14, the Arabs launched an air attack on Tel Aviv, which the Israelis resisted. This action was followed by the invasion of the former Palestinian mandate by Arab armies from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. Saudi Arabia sent a formation that fought under the Egyptian command.” Israel was engaged in a defensive war for its survival against Arabs from Palestine and neighboring countries.
“Whereas the United States voted in favor of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 on December 11, 1948, which states that Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the governments or authorities responsible”;”
The Palestinians have never sought to “live at peace” with Israel. Not in 1948, in 1967, in 2001 nor today. The United States also voted for the UN partition plan in 1947. How do any of the votes of 75 years ago matter today? In 2004, President Bush made clear that as part of Israel leaving Gaza, that “a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.”
Arabs climb fence between Syria and Israel in Nakba Day protest (photo: Jalaa Marey/Reuters)
“Whereas Palestinian refugees’ right of return is not only stipulated in a General Assembly resolution, but is also anchored in international law and in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”;”
The UDHR principal is to return to a COUNTRY, not a town or house. As Palestine was not a country this article is irrelevant. Further, that same UN wanted to separate the land – not country – into new Arab and Jewish states in 1947. Moving the Arabs into the Jewish state undermines that basic principle.
“Whereas, on December 8, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 302 establishing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which the United States has financially supported on an almost continuous basis since its establishment;”
UNRWA was established as a TEMPORARY agency. It’s existence over 70 years later has proven an embarrassment and obstacle to peace. That is why the US had suspended payments to the organization and European countries are cutting back significantly.
An Israeli policeman bleeds from an injury during clashes with Palestinians commemorating Nakba Day at Damascus Gate, Jerusalem, May 15, 2013.(Photo by: Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Activestills.org)
“Whereas of the more than 7,000,000 Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East provides much-needed social services to 5,700,000 Palestine refugees today;”
UNRWA is a general social services organization that treats many people who are NOT refugees. By its own account, UNRWA continues to service hundreds of thousands of “other” people who live in the area. And why not? The idea that descendants of internally-displaced people are somehow “refugees” is an absurdity anyway.
“Whereas international law also recognizes that descendants of refugees retain their rights as refugees, and that according to the United Nations, “Palestine refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political solutions to their underlying political crises”; and”
This is completely untrue. If Tlaib likes UNHCR so much, why not just fold UNRWA into that global organization? It would get rid of rampant corruption, support of terrorism and the major obstacle to peace in the region. UNHCR seeks to find a solution for refugees fleeing war. UNRWA seeks to find only one political solution for one particular group of people – Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) to move into Israel. UNRWA insists that SAPs stay registered with UNRWA and live in its environs, essentially making them prisoners. Should they opt to move – say to London – they would lose this anointed status of “refugee” and free housing, education and medical care today, as well as the chance for free housing in Israel or lots of money. UNHCR has no such political agenda and welcomes actual refugees fleeing war to find citizenship and life anywhere.
“Whereas a just and lasting resolution requires respect for and the implementation of Palestine refugee rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Now, therefore, be it”
Concluding her introductory remarks, Tlaib called out legal principals for a “lasting resolution.” She continued the narrative that there can be no peace with Israel unless the manufactured issue of “refugees” is resolved.
Palestinian rioters mark Nakba Day, 2012 (photo: Majdi Mohammed/ AFP)
“Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the policy of the United States to—
(1) commemorate the Nakba through official recognition and remembrance;
(2) reject efforts to enlist, engage, or otherwise associate the United States Government with denial of the Nakba;
(3) encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the Nakba, including the United States role in the humanitarian relief effort, and the relevance of the Nakba to modern-day refugee crises;”
The first three points highlighted by Tlaib refer to the ‘Nakba’. In Tlaib’s version of history, that would mean educating people that only Arabs are indigenous to Palestine; that Zionists attacked the native Palestinian Arabs and stole their lands; obfuscating that Arabs in 1948 – and today – desired a land free of any Jews; and that Palestinian Arabs want peace, even though they reject the very notion of a Jewish State in Palestine to this day. In other words, supporters of this resolution are looking to support continuing the 1948-9 Arab War against the Jewish State.
“(4) continue to support the provision of social service to Palestinian refugees through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East; and
(5) support the implementation of Palestinian refugees’ rights as enshrined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
UNRWA has shown itself to be a deeply flawed organization. In no situation should the US government be compelled to support a temporary UN agency, which is one of the leading obstacles to peace in the region.
Further, UN Resolution 194 was a document prepared in the midst of a war. It includes numerous provisions which have absolutely no relevance today. Bringing up the December 1948 resolution highlights the dated and irrelevant orientation about refugees from which Tlaib seeks to enshrine certain rights. Indeed, US presidents have made clear that the resolution of the “refugee” issue would have them settle in a new state of Palestine, not Israel.
Palestinians wave Hamas flags on the Jewish Temple Mount. Hamas warned Jews about visiting their holiest site on Nakba Day, 2022. (Photo by Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)
The Nakba isn’t a historical fact but a biased narrative. It attempts to whitewash the Arab attempt to destroy Jews’ safe haven in their ancestral homeland immediately after the Holocaust. Its a flimsy veneer of refugee-washing to promote refugee rights as evidence of being the wronged victim, to distract the world from the violent anti-Semitic screed of the popular Hamas Charter which encapsulates Palestinian desire for a Jew-free land. It’s a disgusting attitude which inspired the war against the Jews in 1948 and continues to this day.
That six members of the US Congress would promote commemorating the ‘Nakba’, highlights how anti-Semitism and racism is being mainstreamed in America today.
The disinformation campaign from the left is torrential when it comes to Israel.
Peter Beinart, an apologist for anti-Semites, wrote in the New York Times on May 9, 2022 about a number of things that President Joe Biden should do to reverse the actions of former President Trump to make the world a safer place. The basic premise of his editorial is curious at the start, as the Obama/Biden presidencies watched the disintegration of a sovereign Ukraine, first in a seizure of Ukraine by Russia, and then an all-out war.
In regards to Israel, the Abraham Accords that Israel struck with several Arab countries under Trump, the lowest level of Israeli deaths form terrorism and the lack of an all-out war from Gaza for the first time since Hamas took control of the area were similarly ignored. Beinart measures “peace” by his perception of what Palestinian Arabs desire.
Section of Peter Beinart editorial in The New York Times May 9, 2022
Beinart took aim at the actions of Trump and Israel as it related to Jerusalem. He mentioned:
Biden’s desire to “reopen the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem” which Trump had closed;
That “Palestinians” live as noncitizens under Israeli control in Jerusalem;
That the U.S. needs to take “an interest in their plight”
As The New York Times does not fact-check its editorials when published by left-wing writers, here are some facts:
The U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem was in western Jerusalem. Not only is the building west of the 1949 Armistice Line, the Obama Administration weaponized the consulate in 2015 when it decided to post armed Palestinian Arabs inside the building. When Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in accordance with Congress’s Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, he folded the consulate offices into the new embassy building. Palestinian Arab concerns continued to be addressed, contrary to Beinart’s implication, it simply lacked the symbolism of a stand-alone building.
Further, Arabs in Jerusalem can apply for Israeli citizenship, and thousands have done so. Beinart wrote that Palestinians suffer from “Israeli control in Jerusalem” when Arabs have been afforded the opportunity to become citizens for decades.
What is the “plight” of Palestinians in Jerusalem that Beinart calls out? The Arab population has skyrocketed (+3.4 times compared to +1.9 times for Jews between 1990 and 2019) as well as the number of households (+188% versus +64% for Jews between 1990 and 2019). The Arabs in Jerusalem are much the same as the ultra-Orthodox Jewish population, with similar fertility rates, age demographics, employment and poverty rates. What does Beinart think of the “plight” of Charedi Jews in Jerusalem? How does he feel about the Jews who were ethnically-cleansed from the Old City of Jerusalem by Arabs in 1949 and banned from the city, even for prayer, until 1967?
Beinart’s overall contention in his tightly-worded and factually-incorrect paragraph seems to be that Trump sided with Israel in regards to Jerusalem and left the Palestinians to suffer under the racist Israeli regime, leaving the region much more unsafe. It is an inversion of the truth, as the region was much safer under the Trump years and it is the Arabs who made the Jews suffer under their control of the eastern portion of Jerusalem.
The New York Times is manufacturing a narrative that “East Jerusalem” still exists and that it’s Palestinian. Beinart added his voice to that fiction, that the Biden administration needs to show the Palestinians that he has “an interest in their plight,” by reversing Trump’s pro-Israel actions. And even more than gestures to Palestinian Arabs (on an unmentioned murdering spree), Beinart wants Biden to give the Islamic Republic of Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism which has threatened the destruction of Israel, a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. Again.
Have an interest in a topic? Email firstonethough@gmail.com
In the rampant misinformation campaign that is propagated in the liberal media and anti-Israel universities, conflating Palestinian Arabs with the foreign terrorist organization Hamas is considered a sign of Islamophobia. In the same breath, those deluded souls will tell you that Israel is a racist European settler colonial regime.
The facts are clear that both statements are lies.
The last time the Palestinian Arabs held elections for their parliament was in 2006. The political-terrorist group Hamas won 76 of 132 seats, or 57.6%, trouncing Fatah which won 43 seats. According to a March 2022 poll, if presidential elections were held today, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would win 54% to Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas getting 38%. If Abbas would not run, the winner would be convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti. Further, a majority (52%) of Palestinian Arabs support terrorism, which the poll termed “armed confrontation and intifada.” Two-thirds of Palestinians want Hamas and another terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to be incorporated into the Palestinian Liberation Organization to “make it more representative of the Palestinian people.” This is apart from the 93% of Palestinian Arabs who are antisemitic.
In regards to Israel, it is the most diverse country in the Middle East. 73.9% of the country is Jewish, 21.1% are Arab (Muslim and Christian) and 5% are other groups including Ba’hai (a religion banned in several neighboring countries), Samaritans and others.
Among Jews, nearly half of the population is Brown and Black.
As of 2018, only 31.8% of Jews were Ashkenazi, of European heritage, and 12.4% were from the former USSR. That compares to 44.9% who are Mizrahi and 3.0% from Ethiopia. The balance (7.9%) are of mixed heritage.
Those figures mean that 32.7% of Israeli Jews are European, when combining all Ashkenazi and Jews from the former USSR.
Ethiopian Jewish woman praying at the Western Wall of the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel (photo: First One Through)
College campuses and the media are lying when they state that Hamas is not representative of the Palestinian people and that Israel is a colonial project of European Jews. The simple current facts are that over 50% of Palestinians support the terrorist groups of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, and less than one-third of Israelis are European Jews.
While the United States and the United Nations talk about engaging with the Palestinian Arabs to bring about a negotiated two state solution with Israel, the Palestinians want none of it.
Over half of Palestinians Arabs in both the West Bank and Gaza are opposed to a two state solution. The trend line according to Palestinian polls has only gotten worse over time.
Opposition to the “Two State Solution” hit an all-time high of 62.8% in the West Bank according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In both the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian Arabs preference is for an “armed struggle,” surpassing those interested in a peace agreement.
West Bankers prefer violence to a peace agreement according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
Gazans prefer violence to a peace agreement by over a 2-to-1 margin, according to Palestinian polls in September 2021
In Gaza, the Palestinians prefer the status quo – which we have been told over-and-again is absolutely horrible – at almost the same rate as peace!
The United Nations’ adopted wards have no interest in negotiating with Israel or a two state solution, but politicians like to perform on the global stage, imagine that they are uniquely gifted to break the century-old logjam and win Noble prizes.
Heinrich Himmler, the head of Nazi Germany’s infamous SS (Schutzstaffel, or Protection Squads), was responsible for conceiving and overseeing implementation of the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
When Himmler took over the SS in 1929, it had just 280 people. By the time the Nazis were voted into power in 1933, it had 52,000. Over the next few years, Himmler fused the SS with other “security” organizations like the Gestapo in 1939, empowering him to execute his vision of “racial purity” and extermination of the Jews.
When the Nazis took over Poland in 1939 and later the Soviet Union, Himmler’s power expanded into the new territories. He dispatched Einsatzgruppen, essentially mobile killing units who targeted Jews and Roma for annihilation. To achieve his goal of the complete eradication of these untermenschen, Himmler oversaw a vast concentration camp system.
Himmler’s enormous hatred for Jews extended beyond his direct reach. He held meetings with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had already met with Adolf Hitler in 1941, professing natural loyalty to Nazi Germany as they had a common enemy in the British and the Jews. Hitler was taken by the Palestinian Arab’s anti-Semitism, saying that Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews, that naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests.
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini with Nazi leader Heinirich Himmler
On November 2, 1943, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Himmler sent his fellow anti-Semite a telegram wishing him a “great victory” in his battle against the Jews.
Telegram from Heinrich Himmler to Grand Mufti on November 2, 1943
In 1945, Nazi Germany was defeated and Hitler and Himmler died, but the sick hatred for Jews did not disappear.
The orphaned Jews of Europe came to Palestine to join fellow Jews in trying to start a new life but were confronted by Arabs which sought to annihilate the survivors. In every decade the local and regional Arabs launched wars against the Jewish State, killing whomever they could, refusing to recognize its existence.
Eighty years ago, the Nazis were the “standard-bearer in the battle against world Jewry” who appreciated “the battle of freedom-seeking Arabs, particularly in Palestine, against the Jewish invaders.” Today, it is a disparate collection of organized and disorganized alt-left and alt-right anti-Semites who rally to the new standard-bearer against world Jewry, Palestinian Arabs.
Pro-Palestinians argue vehemently for an independent Arab state and complain about the treatment of Arabs in Israel. One rarely hears what an Arab State of Palestine would be like so perhaps it’s worth a review.
Israel’s Model in a Palestinian State
Minority population. Non-Jews make up roughly 25% of Israel. Were a Palestinian State to have 25% minorities, they would account for well over 1 million people. But the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has demanded a country completely devoid of Jews. Pro-Palestinians want to see every Jew evicted from the West Bank, leaving it Jew-free, just as Israel did in the Sinai for Egypt (1982) and in Gaza for the PA (2005).
Land ownership. Israelis of all religions buy and sell homes around the country. In a unique and evil law, the Palestinian Authority calls for the death sentence or life of hard labor for any Palestinian Arab selling land to a Jew.
Freedom to Worship. Mosques with minarets dot Israeli cities. Jews, Muslims and Christians can pray throughout the country. However, the Palestinians demand that Jews be denied the right to pray at Judaism’s holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount in Jerusalem. They clearly don’t expect synagogues in a Palestinian State that doesn’t contain any Jews.
Language. The street signs and currency in Israel are in Hebrew and Arabic as well as English. Upon entering Area A or Gaza which are under Palestinian control, all signs are only in Arabic.
Parliament. Israel’s parliament includes Jews, Muslims and Arabs. An extremist Arab party actually sits in the governing coalition.
Arab women entering the Western Wall Plaza (photo: FirstOneThrough)
Palestinian Model in Israel
Terrorist group as political party. HAMAS is a designated terrorist group according to the United States, the European Union and many western countries. Still, it sits as the majority of the Palestinian parliament, having won 58% of the seats in elections. If Israel used such format, the Meir Kahane-inspired group Kach would sit in parliament today, but the Israeli government banned them.
Paying for murder. The Palestinian Authority pays the families of terrorists who kill and maim Israeli, encouraging violence. No country in the world has such a “pay-to-slay” program as a cornerstone of public policy.
Naming schools and square for terrorists. The PA names girls schools, soccer tournaments, public squares and many other fora after Arabs who murder Jews. There is no school or basketball in Israel named for Baruch Goldstein, which Palestinian Arabs probably don’t understand.
If Palestinians sought to build a country with 1 million Jews as Palestinian citizens, with the ability to be in parliament, build synagogues and worship freely around the country, acquire property openly and have meaningful jobs without fear of violence, Israel would not only recognize such country but endorse its creation.
If Palestinians would use Israel’s model for dealing with a minority population there would be a Palestinian state today. The lack of a state stems from the PA’s refusal to coexist peacefully with Jewish neighbors.
Palestine declared itself as an independent state in 1988 to the joy of the Muslim and Arab world. Algeria, Libya, Iraq and dozens of other countries rushed to recognize the country. They believed that this was the fair thing to do, even as they refused to recognize the Jewish State of Israel.
Much of the western world refuses to recognize a Palestinian state as they wait for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to negotiate a peace agreement. However, the Palestinian Authority has aggressively pushed for broader recognition and effectively broke through to many South American countries in the 2009 to 2011 time frame.
After multiple wars and terrorist attacks launched from Gaza, it is time for those South American countries to rescind their recognition.
On May 17, 2021, the Organization of American States (OAS), stated unequivocally that Hamas is a terrorist group that targets civilians:
“Hamas’s terrorist aggression is unlimited and always seeks civilian victims, seeks to escalate conflict dynamics and armed actions, as well as sowing terror among innocent populations, be they Israeli or Palestinian.
“The immoral and unworthy use of children and women as human shields, as well as the militarization of residential areas, constitute in themselves acts that deserve the most absolute repudiation and condemnation.”
These are plain facts but the OAS has not reflected on its own statement.
Hamas is not an outlier terrorist group but the leading political party in Palestinian parliament, having won 58% of the seats the last time elections were held. It controls the entirety of the Gaza Strip. It is predicted to win the presidency according to Palestinian polls if elections are held again.
As such, recognizing a State of Palestine today is to legitimize terrorism. It is not only immoral to do so but stands against the Inter-American Convention Against Terrorism, adopted by the OAS in 2002, which affirmed “the need to adopt effective steps in the inter-American system to prevent, punish, and eliminate terrorism through the broadest cooperation.“
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez pictured in 2009, when he abolished term limits, took over the banks, severed relations with Israel and recognized a State of Palestine.Things have only gotten worse.
It is time for the countries of Latin America to sever ties with “Palestine.”
Palestinian supporters who hate Israel use a variety of terms to whitewash the crimes and intentions of Palestinian Arabs. Below is a sampling with a review of the misdirection.
“Intifada”
The term “Intifada” means “Uprising.” It gives the sense that the movement is one of empowering the disenfranchised as a matter of protest rather than the reality of genocidal terrorism.
The “Second Intifada” which raged from roughly September 2000 to September 2004 witnessed Palestinian Arabs blowing up ice cream parlors full of children, school lunchrooms and buses. Over 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians were killed in the mayhem because the leadership of the Palestinians refused to accept anything less than 100% of their demands.
Intifada means war. It means terrorism. The call for an intifada is not a protest chant but an incitement to violence.
A pro-Palestinian rally in New York City on July 31 featured protestors chanting “globalize the Intifada” and other anti-Israel chants.
“Martyr”
The Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians are described as “martyrs” by Palestinians. They are held up as idols for Palestinian children when schools, soccer tournaments and public squares are named for the terrorists. The mothers and fathers of the killers are showcased on television telling the Arab public how proud they are of the killer’s sacrifice. The Palestinian Authority pays the families of the terrorists monthly stipends for their “contribution” of killing the enemy.
For clarity, the term “martyr” actually means “a person who is killed because of their religious beliefs.” Using the term for Palestinian terrorists turns Israel into racist murderers rather than victims of jihadi genocidal maniacs.
“Slain attackers”
Much like the term “martyrs,” pro-Palestinian press prefers to call Palestinian terrorists killed while committing murder as “slain attackers.” The word “slain” is defined as “to kill violently, wantonly, or in great numbers.” In other words, according to anti-Zionist rags like The New York Times, it is Palestinian Arab “attackers” who are killed violently and wantonly by Israelis. Not only are Israelis racists (see “martyrs” above) but also mass murderers.
“Resistance”
The political-terrorist group Hamas calls itself a “resistance force.” It is a designated terrorist group by dozens of western countries because of the hundreds of attacks it has perpetrated on civilians around the world. Its foundational charter is an anti-Semitic screed which calls for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. The people of Gaza continue to support killing Israeli civilians in every poll.
The Palestinian “resistance” is to the mere presence of Jews which they have made clear in 100 years of riots and wars, even though Palestinian supporters will portray the Arabs as only protesting “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.“
“Desperate”
Palestinian apologists claim that Palestinians are “desperate” which is why they take such vicious actions against Israeli civilians. That’s outrageous. Desperate people gladly take whatever they can; entitled people refuse to take anything less than full demands.
Palestinians have refused every offer for peace for generations. They demand a country without a single Jew living in it. They categorically refuse to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish State as part of a final settlement. A desperate people clinging for a chance at self-determination would never deny such things, unless their actual goal is to deny Jews of their own homes and country.
“Resorting to violence”
Anti-Israel opinion rags like The New York Times sometimes go beyond painting Palestinians as “desperate” people “resisting” Israeli occupation. It states that the political-terrorist group Hamas (which it never calls a terrorist group) has “resorted to violence.” The feeble-minded gray lady writes this despite the Hamas making its genocidal intentions public for the whole world to see.
“Impatient”
Doubling-down on a twisted portrayal of Hamas, The Times excuses violent flare-ups from Gaza as “localized expression of Palestinian impatience,” as it wrote on the front page of its May 6, 2019 paper. According to the anti-Israel paper, Israelis get shot because Gazans are impatient, not because they are the most anti-Semitic people in the world who are in favor of killing Israelis.
“Free Palestine”
Chants of “Free Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” and “we don’t want two states, we want all of it” are spun as simply a desire for equality in the holy land for Jews and Arabs. It is nothing of the sort but a call for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel.
Liberal media inverts the “from the river to the sea” as actually the chant of Jewish extremists who want to annex the West Bank, an area that was part-and-parcel of the British Mandate which called for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland there.
“Arab Land”
Sorry, but Israel is not part of the Arabian Peninsula. It’s also not part of the League of Arab States. It’s also not European nor African. It’s a little swatch of land connecting many continents.
Are the people who use this expression arguing that land itself has the DNA of a particular people? Would the same people say that Europe is “White Land” or Africa is “Black Land?” If someone were to argue that some lands truly are part and parcel of a specialized group of people, they would have to admit that the Land of Israel is “Jewish Land,” as Judaism is the only religion with a tie to specific land.
The term “Arab Land” is deliberately designed to sever the thousands of years of history that Jews have in the land. It is an example of the fictitious narrative that “Jesus was a Palestinian” and not a Jew, in an attempt to not just evict the current Jewish presence in the land but to expunge the entirety of Jewish history.
“Dignity”
Politicians state over and again that Israel deserves “security” while Palestinians deserve “dignity.” It seems like such a simple ask of Israel, to afford the Palestinians some semblance of dignity.
But if the parameters of Palestinian dignity is that Jews cannot have sovereignty, cannot live in the West Bank, cannot pray on the Temple Mount, cannot buy land from an Arab and demands the denial of Jewish history, why should that sort of “dignity” be endorsed, let alone entertained?
“Refugees”
Palestinian supporters have used and abused the term “refugees” for Palestinian Arabs in ways that have no bearing on the word, and in doing so, harm over 30 million actual refugees fleeing war zones today.
The Palestinian Arabs cared for by UNRWA are not refugees but stateless. They deserve to become citizens of either a new country or an existing country but that doesn’t make a child whose grandparents left a town five miles away during a war a “refugee.” Yet, these Palestinian “refugees” are taking billions of dollars of support when such monies can be used for children actually fleeing for their lives to foreign lands where they don’t speak the language and have no family support or infrastructure.
A “Viable” State
Anti-Zionist supporters of the Palestinians argue that there are certain minimum standards that a new country of Palestine must have in order to be viable.
As discussed above, “viability” means that there can be no Jews. “Settlers” undermine the foundation of the country for some reason. While Arabs can live in Israel without destroying the state, seemingly a Jewish presence in Palestine undermines the very viability of the country.
Similarly, a Palestinian state would need to be much wider than Israel is today. If Israel were to annex land up to the town of Maale Adumim west of Jerusalem, critics warn that Palestine would be cut in two and non-viable with a country only 15km wide at one point. Meanwhile Israel is that wide along its main population centers without the cry to widen Israel.
“1967 Borders”
People use the term “1967 Borders” even though the 1949 armistice agreements struck between Israel and Jordan as well as between Israel and Egypt specifically stated that those lines have no meaning and do not function as borders.
“Palestinian Citizens of Israel“
Israel afforded all Arabs the opportunity to be citizens when it declared statehood in 1948 and affords all Arabs in Jerusalem to become Israeli citizens today. Over 20% of Israel’s population is Arab.
Pro-Palestinians don’t like the notion of “Israeli Arabs” as they think it somehow acknowledges the liberalism of Israel being an open society. Instead, they opt for the very wordy “Palestinian Citizens of Israel” to market the proposition that their tie to the land of Palestine is permanent as is their identity which are distinct from Israel. Should a new state of Palestine ever be created, there is no question that these same Palestinian propaganda promoters would call the Jews in the country “Palestinian Jews,” (G-d forbid, if they are allowed to live there), not “Israeli citizens of Palestine.”
“Palestinian East Jerusalem”
The anti-Zionist media will have you believe that “East Jerusalem” exists today even though it only existed as an artifice of war for 19 years that ceased to be over fifty years ago. To extend the fiction, they will promote that it is a Palestinian city, even though there is no recognized country of Palestine and no part of the city was ever conceived to be Arab in the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
The anti-Zionist lexicon is not only attacking the Jewish state but sanitizing Palestinian Arabs of their anti-Semitism and terrorism in an attempt to wish a State of Palestine into being. Everyone should readily recognize the abuse of language that has become mainstreamed by anti-Israel voices.
The mainstream narrative organizations (formerly known as “news outlets”) refuse to label Palestinian terrorist groups as such, preferring softer marketing terms like “extremist” and “militant.” To be clear, the United States and many governments specifically and officially designate foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) to “play a critical role in our fight against terrorism and are an effective means of curtailing support for terrorist activities and pressuring groups to get out of the terrorism business.“
Here is a list of the Palestinian terrorist groups.
HAMAS. This terrorist group is responsible for hundreds of attacks and murder of civilians. It’s foundational charter reeks of anti-Semitism and calls for the destruction of the Jewish State of Israel. It is highly popular among Palestinians, winning 58% of parliament in 2006 and its leader is projected to win the presidency according to recent Palestinian polls (should elections ever take place), amounting to millions of supporters. The political-terrorist group runs Gaza, and has launched repeated wars and skirmishes against Israel.
Palestine Liberation Front (PLF). Broke away from the PFLP-GC in mid-1970s. Later split again into pro-PLO, pro-Syrian, and pro-Libyan factions. Several terrorist attacks including the hijacking of the Achille Lauro and an attack near a beach in Tel Aviv.
Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Originated among militant Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the 1970s as a series of loosely affiliated factions rather than a cohesive group. Committed to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel through holy war. Conducted suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Israel. Has threatened to attack US interests in Jordan. Receives financial assistance from Iran and limited assistance from Syria.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Marxist-Leninist group founded in 1967 by George Habash as a member of the PLO. Joined the Alliance of Palestinian Forces (APF) to oppose the Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 and has suspended participation in the PLO. Broke away from the APF, along with the DFLP, in 1996 over ideological differences. Has made limited moves toward merging with the DFLP since the mid-1990s. Committed numerous international terrorist attacks during the 1970s and against Israelis after the signing of the Oslo II Accords. Receives most of its financial and military assistance from Syria and Libya.
PFLP-General Command (PFLP-GC). Split from the PFLP in 1968, claiming it wanted to focus more on fighting and less on politics. Led by Ahmad Jabril, a former captain in the Syrian Army, who just died. Headquartered in Damascus with bases in Lebanon and cells in Europe, it receives logistic and military support from Syria and financial support from Iran.
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB). Group aims to drive the Israeli military and Jewish residents from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Jerusalem and to establish a Palestinian state via terrorism, including shootings and suicide operations. At least five Americans were killed by the group. The group is more secular than HAMAS which is Islamist.
Army of Islam (AOI). Based in Gaza, it is viewed as even more extreme than HAMAS. It has conducted a number of kidnapping raids into Israel, including that of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.
The following Palestinian terrorist groups were removed from official designation:
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), it has a more moderate stance than many fellow organizations. For example, it was opposed to attacks against Jews and Israelis outside of Israel and it is not Islamist. While it committed several terrorist attacks in the 1970’s, the deep-Islamist turn of Palestinian society with the rise of HAMAS marginalized the group. It was the group primarily credited for advancing the notion of a “two-state solution” inside of the PLO which made the US drop the FTO designation in 1999.
Abu Nidal Organization (ANO). Group carried out terrorist attacks in 20 countries, killing or injuring almost 900 persons. Targets included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, moderate Palestinians, the PLO, and various Arab countries. Major attacks included the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985, the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul and the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in Karachi in September 1986, and the City of Poros day-excursion ship attack in July 1988 in Greece. Suspected of assassinating PLO deputy chief Abu Iyad and PLO security chief Abu Hul in Tunis in January 1991. The group went inactive with the death of Abu Nidal in 2002, and the US removed it as an FTO in 2017 when President Trump tried to prod Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to stop payments to terrorists (it didn’t work).
A day in Gaza City (Photo: AP/Khalil Hamra)
Palestinians have a remarkable number of terrorist groups dedicated to killing Jews and moderate Palestinians. It is equally remarkable that the press refuses to call them out.
