Ever-Elections, Never-Elections and Controlling Elections

Posted on March 3, 2020 by First.One.Through

On March 1, 2020, the Israeli public went to the voting polls – again. It was the third time in just a year in which the Jewish State sought to establish a government. While the final results are not in, it looks like Israeli Prime Minister’s Likud Party won 36 seats while the Blue and White Party won 32 seats. Overall, the Right-Religious block appears to have secured 59 seats, short of a 61 seat majority.

Israeli elections again?

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority continues to do nothing. The PA last held elections for Parliament in 2006, in which the Hamas, a U.S., a designated terrorist organization, won 58 percent of the seats, an over-whelming majority. In 2005, the Palestinians voted for president and elected Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah to a four-year term. That term expired in January 2009, over eleven years ago, but Abbas refuses to relinquish power or hold elections.

The Palestinians have divided their areas of control with Hamas ruling in Gaza and Fatah administering Palestinian territories in the West Bank. The two parties cannot reconcile between themselves to form a unity government and refuse to let the people hold new elections as a way out of the impasse, as each party fears losing the little control it does wield.

And in the United States, the presidential contest is set like clockwork, moving towards a November vote, as it does every four years. This year, the Democratic establishment is so fearful of the leading position of Socialist Bernie Sanders, that it effectively pushed two moderates – Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg – off of the Super Tuesday ballots and to endorse Vice President Joe Biden for president, in the hopes of giving the moderates of the party a chance to coalesce behind a single person to defeat the extremist Bernie Sanders. The leaders of the Democratic Party know that a brokered convention will tear their party apart – either in blocking Bernie Sanders and making the progressive wing of the party go to war, or by giving the ticket to Bernie and watching all of the Democratic candidates around the country go down to defeat.

Such is the state of elections today: Israel forever holding elections, Palestinians never having elections and the United States attempting to control the election outcome. It brings to mind a quote by Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

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The Best Palestinian Response to the Trump Initiative is Welcoming Jews to Palestine

Posted on February 4, 2020 by First.One.Through

US President Donald Trump put forward a new Middle East Framework called “Peace to Prosperity” (P2P). It was the first Middle East framework offered since the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002 (API). The API was, not surprisingly, heavily biased towards the Palestinian Arabs’ demands and not Israeli security. It did not advance peace but rather ushered wars from Gaza in 2008, 2012 and 2014, a war from Lebanon in 2006 and a “stabbing intifada” from the West Bank in 2015.

Unlike the API, Trump’s P2P plan was focused on Israel’s security (and Palestinians’ prosperity), and the Palestinian Authority considered it a non-starter before they even saw it. The acting-President of the PA Mahmoud Abbas has refused to even entertain discussing it.

That is a mistake.

The underlying issue of Israel’s security manifests itself in the plan in a few ways, most notably, that all Palestinian border crossings must be managed by Israel and that a future State of Palestine must be demilitarized. If the PA were to refuse to accept those two principles, there is indeed nothing to discuss regarding any of the other key items for Palestinians such as land, refugees and Jerusalem.

However, if Abbas accedes to those two Israeli security points, he will likely be able to gain much on the other issues that matter to him and to the Palestinians.

Consider the land.

The P2P plan has Israel assuming sections of the West Bank including the entirety of the Jordan Valley. It leaves the Palestinian territory as a patchwork of parcels, with the towns in which Jews reside being annexed by Israel dotted, in between.

However, the Palestinians might be able to obtain almost the entirety of the West Bank if it grants Palestinian citizenship to all of the inhabitants of the Jewish towns. This action would be much like the Jewish State’s in 1948 when it granted Israeli citizenship to all of the Arabs. The Jews would make up a much smaller percentage of Palestine than Arabs’ in Israel today.

As the border would be controlled by Israel, only a sliver of land between Palestine and Jordan would be required to be Israeli instead of the whole Jordan Valley, much like the plan assumes Israel having a thin sliver of land buffering Palestinian territory in the Negev and Egypt. The net result would be the Palestinians gaining almost the entirety of the West Bank other than a sliver along the Jordan River.

The willingness to accept Jewish citizens into Palestine might also open a window for Israel to accept many Arab refugees into Israel, rather than just giving them compensation as mapped under the P2P plan. A new Arab spirit of coexistence might stimulate Israel to take as many as 50,000 Arab refugees per year for a number of years, with the balance receiving compensation and settling in a new Palestinian State.

The capital of a Palestinian State could also become more dynamic, with Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem becoming parts of a Palestinian capital.

In short, Palestinians can gain a lot on all of their key negotiating points by working off of the Trump peace initiative if they endorse coexistence and welcome Jews into a new state. In contrast, the current path of continued demonization of Israel and the denial of Jewish history and rights will only further cement the stagnation for Palestinians in regards to both peace and prosperity.

Palestinians should call the Israeli bluff, and see if hundreds of thousands of Jews are willing to live as a minority in Palestine. If the Israelis balk, then the BDS movement will likely advance globally. However, if the Israelis endorse the principle, Israel will be blocked from annexing any land (pro-Arab), while United Nations Resolution 2334 will be deemed moot and the global BDS movement will come to an end (pro-Israel).

American Leaders Always Planned on Israel Absorbing Much of the West Bank

Posted on January 30, 2020 by First.One.Through

The liberal press is counting on people’s terrible memory and fondness for their cherished presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama to convey a false history of the Middle East. It boldly lies that American politicians have always viewed the contours of Israel to be roughly along the 1949 Armistice Lines, commonly referred to as the Green Line and that Israel would uproot its’ civilian population in the West Bank much as it did in Gaza. Consider The New York Times’ article “What’s in a Peace Plan: Settlements and a Goal of a Palestinian State” on January 30, 2020. The article was full of distortions including: “The United States has long voiced support for the creation of a Palestinian state with only slight adjustments to the Israeli boundaries that existed before the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, when Israel wrested the West Bank from Jordan, and Gaza from Egypt.”

The New York Times January 30, 2020 Page A8

That is total nonsense, meant to make Donald Trump’s plan look like a complete break with the past (a past which must be noted never produced a peace deal). To describe reality, read the letter that President George W Bush wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on April 14, 2004, after Sharon announced that he was going to withdraw all Israelis from Gaza: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.” That is the essence of the Trump plan – reflecting the reality of over half a million Israelis living in communities in the West Bank. This position of Israel incorporating Israeli population centers in the West Bank was reflected in the Democratic party as well, until Obama pivoted away from Israel towards the Muslim world in the hope of creating a “new beginning.” Look at the 2008 Democratic platform’s point on Israel: “All understand that it is unrealistic to expect the outcome of final status negotiations to be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” The Democrats-of-old also agreed with the Trump initiative recommendation that Jerusalem remain a unified city and the capital of Israel. The 2008 Democrats stated: “Jerusalem is and will remain the capital of Israel. The parties have agreed that Jerusalem is a matter for final status negotiations. It should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths.” But the current contenders for the president from the Democratic Party (other than Mike Bloomberg) have run from Israel and the notion that Jerusalem should remain the unified capital of Israel. They are the one’s who have turned on long-standing American policy, not Trump. But the liberal media will lie, distort history and tell you #AlternativeFacts like “Israel wrested the West Bank from Jordan” without adding that Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 and Israel took the territory – which Jordan had illegally annexed in 1950 – in a defensive war. The Times article likewise wrote that “[p]revious American proposals spoke of uprooting tens of thousands of Israelis from the settlements to return those areas to Palestinians.” As seen above, that’s a lie. Further, there could be no “return… to Palestinians” as the Israelis would have had to return the land to Jordanians who illegally occupied the land, not Palestinians who never controlled the area. Do not be swayed by the #FakeNews that the Trump peace plan is a radical change of American policy. It just appears that way after eight years of Obama distancing himself from Israel and the current anti-Zionist edge infecting the left-wing media and politicians. Before Obama, Israel truly was a bipartisan cause in which the contours of the Trump peace plan would have been endorsed by all.

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Palestineism is Toxic Racism

Posted on August 18, 2019 by First.One.Through

Racism is a form of hatred which believes that all members of a particular group are inferior and/or evil. In itself, it is ugly but not dangerous, a localized noxious belief system based on bigotry. Racism becomes toxic when it spreads and obtains power.

Such is the state of Palestineism, the effort to weaken, shrink and destroy Israel because it is a Jewish State, as well as to vilify Jews and deny their rights, history and dignity in the Jewish holy land.

The Arab World

Palestineism has been present in the Arab and Muslim world for a hundred years.

Denying Jews and the Jewish State has been at the forefront of the Palestineism. Even before Jews reestablished Jewish sovereignty in their holy land in 1948, Arabs rioted and killed Jews throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, and petitioned the British who oversaw the Palestine Mandate to bar and limit the entry of Jews during the Holocaust in Europe. When Israel declared itself a Jewish state, the armies of five neighboring Arab Muslim countries invaded with the stated desire to destroy it completely. The Arabs evicted Jews from all lands they seized and specifically forbade Jews from obtaining citizenship (Article 3). Fellow Arab and Muslim nations followed suit, with ten Arab and Muslim countries expelling one million Jews after Israel was founded, irrespective of whether their fellow Jewish countrymen were Zionists.

To this very day, there are 30 Arab and Muslim countries which refuse to acknowledge the basic existence of the only Jewish country despite 20% of Israel’s population being Muslim, even while they recognize other countries including Myanmar which actively persecutes Muslims. The acting-President of the Palestinian Authority (PA) Mahmoud Abbas continues to refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, an acknowledgement which would have no impact on creating a new state of Palestine.

The Arab world’s objection to Israel is specifically that it is that is it Jewish.

Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization said: “We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilled to redeem our land!”
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of Hamas said “Israel, as the Jewish state, must disappear from the map.”
The Hamas Charter contains the following verses:
- “They [Jews] are smitten with vileness wheresoever they are found; unless they obtain security by entering into a treaty with Allah…”
- “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious”
- The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews)… O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him…”
- “The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised…”
- “Israel, Judaism and Jews challenge Islam and the Moslem people…”

The Palestinians elected Hamas to 58 percent of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 with this antisemitic jihadist charter full of sinister conspiracy theories about Jews (Articles 17, 22 and 30, among others).

The institutionalized Arab hatred of the Jews has developed into a full-blown vile ideology, as it attempts to validate its desire to wipe out Jews from the region.

The foundational document of the Palestinian Arabs claims that Jews have no history in Palestine, erasing the history and essence of the Jewish people (Article 18).
Throughout the Muslim world, Jews are actively dehumanized and stripped of their dignity, referred to as the “sons of apes and pigs.” It is a doctrine of racial superiority which is morally condemnable.
Mahmoud Abbas said that Jews have been hated for centuries because “of their function,” which is why they are always massacred. He continued his screed that in recent history, the “imperialist powers” tossed those unwanted Jews out of their countries into the Middle East, poisoning Palestinian land with the wretched people. It is blame-the-victim approach worthy of a sickening governing body which excuses honor killings of women.

The fabric of Palestineism is that Jews are disgusting foreign invaders who have no rights nor claims to Arab land.

This immoral Palestineism ideology manifests itself in many ways:

The Palestinian Authority has a law which calls for the death penalty for any Arab who sells land to a Jew.
The PA gives lifetime stipends to Arabs who murder Jews.
The Palestinians refuse to allow Jews to step foot on Arab college campuses in the West Bank, even journalists who loudly condemn Israel.
When Muslims ruled Hebron, they refused to allow Jews from entering their second holiest place, the Tomb of the Jewish Patriarchs.
Muslim Arabs continue to refuse to let the Jews pray at their holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount.

The list goes on.

Palestineism, in its very essence, is about the repression of the dignity and integrity of Jews as human beings, with full rights to live and worship freely in their holy land. The toxicity has spread from the leadership and the state-controlled media to infuse the people who are the most anti-Semitic in the world.

Palestineism in The Rest of the World

Palestineism was built on Jew-hatred and conspiracy theories. The calls that Jews are “colonialists” and invaders of “Arab land” has been picked up by others, including leaders in the western world.

In Great Britain, Jeremy Corbyn is a member of the Labour Party who adopted Palestineism early in his career, often comparing Israelis to Nazis. He was once an outlier, but the toxicity infected the rest of the party when he was elected the party leader in September 2015 and began replacing senior party people with like-minded racists. Jews began to leave the Labour party in droves – including members of parliament – finding the antisemitism intolerable.

In the United States, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were elected to congress in November 2018, and accused Jews of having dual loyalty and buying off members of the government to support Israel, racist tropes which the two Muslim women have not made about Irish-Americans, Mexican Americans or any other group. They contend that the most liberal nation in the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is an apartheid state, inverting the root cause of racism in the region, deflecting Muslim antisemitism. Meanwhile, these same members of Congress believe that the Islamic Republic of Iran which hangs gays by cranes in the streets and is the leading state-sponsor of terrorism, should not only not be boycotted, but given a legal pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran has called for the destruction of Israel – coincidence?

Palestineism is employing the boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) Israel, the sole Jewish state as a tool in its jihad. Corbyn, Omar and Tlaib are pushing for economic warfare against Israel, supposedly in the name of giving Palestinian Arabs a state.

The European Union is considering unique labels for products manufactured by Jews in the Israeli territory of Area C in the West Bank, but not those manufactured by non-Jews. It is the very definition of racism in suppressing the dignity of one human being over another. Will it label products made by Hindus and Muslims in Kashmir differently? By Christians and Muslims in Cyprus?

The toxicity of racism embedded in the Palestineism is not just spreading, it is being mainstreamed and defended by political leaders outside of the Muslim and Arab world. Denying Jewish history and repressing Jewish dignity are no longer viewed as morally condemnable and socially unjust, but essential ingredients to the creation of a Palestinian state, because those sentiments are demanded by the Arab world and Palestinian leadership. As it is considered improper to malign the “marginalized” in liberal circles, the alt-left is parroting the Palestineism propaganda, rather than condemning the racism.

So, schools in the Palestinian territories named for terrorists get European funding. Textbooks which deny the humanity and history of Jews are disseminated by the United Nations. Monies which flow to the murderers of Jews are reimbursed by Arab and non-Arab countries alike.

It is the very embodiment of toxic racism.

Palestinian Arabs could achieve sovereignty and statehood in Gaza and Areas A and B tomorrow, but Palestineism has more malicious demands: that Israel not be a Jewish State; that Jews be forbidden from living anywhere in Palestine; and that Jews be denied access and rights to their holy sites. It is Palestineism that is the roadblock to creating a state of Palestine and an enduring peace in the region, nothing else.

Palestineism is a sinister jihad, a direct antisemitic assault on the humanity, dignity and integrity of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State and the polar opposite of coexistence and decency. It must be condemned loudly, clearly and often by everyone.

Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), advocate for boycotting Israel,
upon being sworn in as a new member of the US Congress

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The Growth of UNRWA’s “Other” Wards

Posted on August 9, 2019 by First.One.Through

The last post “UNRWA Anoints New Palestinian Wards” generated many questions. Does the agency tasked with helping descendants of internally-displaced people from 1948 actually assist non-refugees as well?

The answer is unambiguously yes.

Here is UNRWA’s report from January 1, 2011. It shows a whopping growth in the number of “refugees,” including a growth of 8.9% in the West Bank alone. If that sounds too hard to believe that Arabs suddenly went from an annual population growth of 2-3% to 9%, it’s because it is untrue. UNRWA decided to add lots of other people onto its service rolls.

Here is a chart the following year in January 2012, the first time UNRWA broke out figures for this “other” category.

Table 1. 2012 UNRWA Recipients Totals

2012	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Bank	Gaza	Total
Refugees	1,979,580	436,154	486,946	727,471	1,167,572	4,797,723
“Others”	67,787	29,644	23,498	147,156	49,947	318,032
Total	2,047,367	465,798	510,444	874,627	1,217,519	5,115,755

other %	3.3%	6.4%	4.6%	16.8%	4.1%	6.2%

The non-refugees who received aid from UNRWA were 6.2% of the total population, and an incredible 16.8% in the West Bank.

The world didn’t seem to care and kept sending money to the agency. So the numbers of “others” kept on skyrocketing.

Here is a chart from January 2019, which shows that the “other” percentage jumped to over 10% of the total population serviced by UNRWA.

Table 2. 2019 UNRWA Recipients Totals

2019	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Bank	Gaza	Total
Refugees	2,242,579	475,075	560,139	846,465	1,421,282	5,545,540
“Others”	133,902	58,810	83,003	201,525	149,013	626,253
Total	2,376,481	533,885	643,142	1,047,990	1,570,295	6,171,793

other %	5.6%	11.0%	12.9%	19.2%	9.5%	10.1%

As shown in Table 2, one-in-five West Bank recipients of UNRWA aid were not even descendants of people who fled the 1948 war zone.

This is a result of the active recruitment of “other” Arabs who UNRWA decided should get services from the bloated agency.

Table 3. Change from 2012 to 2019
UNRWA Recipients Totals

Change	Jordan	Lebanon	Syria	West Bank	Gaza	Total
Refugees	13.3%	8.9%	15.0%	16.4%	21.7%	15.6%
“Others”	97.5%	98.4%	253.2%	36.9%	198.3%	96.9%

As show in Table 3, while the Gaza “refugee” population grew by 21.7% over seven years, the “others” serviced by UNRWA TRIPLED. Overall, the refugee population grew by 15.6% while the “other” category almost doubled.

Who are these “Other” Non-Refugees?

UNRWA doesn’t hide the fact that in services other people. It considers itself a humanitarian organization, so it will give other people in need free education and healthcare. Why Syrians fleeing the terrible civil war come under the umbrella of UNRWA (growing by 253%!!) and not the UNHCR which cares for every other refugee in the world is a mystery that only the brains at UNRWA could answer.

In general, UNRWA breaks down the “other” category into six categories:

Jerusalem poor and Gaza poor. Just being poor – and their descendants! – entitles people to special relief from UNRWA.
Frontier Villagers. That’s a category, and all their descendants also get services from UNRWA.
Compromise Cases. Alas, these descendant to not get services
Family Members. If someone marries a refugee, then they get services and all adopted children get services. Quite the set up for the scam of the century.
Non-refugee wives. If you marry a refugee, you get special services.
Khafala children. Children who get Islamic care from a refugee or “other” get UNRWA services too, even if they or their ancestors were never refugees.

So many rich categories to choose from, it’s a wonder that the rolls only doubled in seven years and din’t quintuple.

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

UNRWA was created in 1950 as a TEMPORARY agency, but has managed to make itself a permanent fixture in the Arab-Israel conflict as it inflates the number of refugees and continuously adds to its beneficiaries and staffing. It is well past time to whittle it down to size.

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UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease

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I See Dead People

Posted on July 19, 2019 by First.One.Through

When I watch the marchers in Charlottesville, VA chant “Jews will not replace us,” I see the marches of Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.
When I hear the president of the United States say “you didn’t build that“, I see the words of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf debasing Jews that they are manipulators who profit off the work of others.
When I watch the United Nations pass resolutions with America’s approval, that Jews living in the eastern part of their homeland is illegal, I think of the ghettos limiting where Jews were allowed to live.
When I hear of countries in Europe pushing to ban kosher meat and circumcision, I think of the Greek-Syrian laws in the Jewish holy land 2200 years ago, pressuring to destroy the spirit and religious practices of the Jewish people.
When the world cannot utter a word about Palestinian laws calling for the death penalty for any Arab selling land to a Jew and about the leadership which calls for a Jew-free state, I think of the pogroms throughout the centuries in Russia and Europe, and the concealed mass Jewish graves which fill the forest floors.
When I watch universities in the United States passing resolutions targeting a boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) of the only Jewish State, I think of the Nazis boycotting Jewish stores.

An den Fenstern j¸discher Gesch‰fte werden von Nationalsozialisten Plakate mit der Aufforderung “Deutsche, wehrt euch, kauft nicht bei Juden” angebracht.
When I watch European and United Nations leaders encouraging Hamas and trying to merge it into a Palestinian unity government, I think of British leader Neville Chamberlain meeting with Hitler in 1938.
When I hear members of the U.S. Congress say that Jews are buying off politicians because they support Israel more than they care about America, I think about leading industrialist Henry Ford republishing the forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion to foment widespread Jew-hatred.
When I see European countries labeling products made in Israel and Israeli territories, I see Nazis forcing Jews to wear yellow Jewish stars on their clothing.
When I see the United Nations stand by as terrorists use their schools to store and launch rockets into Israel, I think of the U.N. pulling its troops out of the Sinai in 1967 as Israelis dug mass graves in the center of Jerusalem as they prepared to be attacked.
When I read about Jewish groups actively lobbying to dismantle U.S. support for Israel, I think of the zealots of 2,000 years ago who helped destroy the Second Jewish Temple.
When I hear the Democratic candidates for president embrace vile anti-Semites like Linda Sarsour and Louis Farrakhan, I think about the Ku Klux Klan’s David Duke’s run for the presidency.
When I see “intellectuals” addressing the United Nations that Jews are trying to take over the entire “Muslim” Middle East, I am reminded of Christian blood libels.
When I read the leading liberal paper of the United States demonize Israel as racist and deserving of Arab ire, I think about Joseph G oebells and his Nazi propaganda machine.
When I hear the leader of the United Nations say that Palestinian reaction to the occupation is “natural,” I see the five faces of the Fogel family, slaughtered in their sleep.
When I hear the president of the United States call for a member of congress to go back where she came from and then watch as a crowd chants “send her back” to her country which is in shambles, I think of leading White House reporter Helen Thomas telling Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine” to return to the countries which had slaughtered them.
When the United States turns away refugees and asylum seekers, and the press will not discuss the British White Paper which cost over 100,000 European Jews their lives, I note the press’s preference that only certain havens are considered acceptable, and the Jewish homeland isn’t an appropriate one for Jews.
When I watch 58 members of the United States Congress walk out on the address of the Israeli Prime Minister who was alarmed at the advancement of a deal which would enable a country which had called for its destruction to have a legal pathway to nuclear weapons, I see something frighteningly new: I see the active arming of terrorists with weapons of mass destruction by the Israel’s closest ally.
When I hear the echoes of hatred as loud and as clear as the original voices, I see dead people.

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The Calming Feeling of Palestinian Refugees: Rashida Tlaib in Her Own Words

Posted on May 15, 2019 by First.One.Through

Curiously, but not surprisingly, the alt-left has run to the defense of U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) over the bizarre comments the Muslim woman of Palestinian decent made about the Palestinian Arabs helping European Jews survive the Holocaust. In order to help shed light on why many Jews were offended by her statements, below is the essence of Tlaib’s comments, but applied to Palestinians, in remarks which perhaps Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) should give:

U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
(photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

“There’s a kind of comforting feeling I get when I think about the terrible situation of Palestinian refugees from the event they call the ‘Nakba,’ and the fact that it was my ancestors, Jews in Israel, who gave up half of their homeland, many people their lives, their livelihood and their basic human dignity – their Jewish souls in many ways were wiped out – to make space for these refugees.

I mean, to think that these Jews gave up so much of their homeland as determined by international law in the 1920’s, first giving Arabs the land east of the Jordan River in what became the country of Jordan, and then giving additional Arabs half of the remaining land to be their own. Then, as if that were not enough, my ancestors welcomed over 100,000 Arabs into their own remaining sliver of the Jewish holy land when it became a state in 1948. These Jews gave up the opportunity to have a purely Jewish State – like the pure Arab regions they gave to the Arabs in Jordan as well as in Judea and Samaria and Gaza – and awarded these Israeli Arabs full rights even while Jews were not even allowed to live in the Arab territories in return. The division of the land may have been forced on my ancestors, but they accepted it and I am humbled by the grace they exhibited towards the Arab refugees by giving them so much to realize their dreams.

My Jewish ancestors continued to bestow on the Arabs so many benefits over the following decades. In 1967 they extended their hands in the goal of peace and coexistence in Judea and Samaria (which the Arabs had renamed the “West Bank”) and Gaza, and tried to help build a thriving economy as they had done with Arabs in Israel. In 2005, seeing how the Arab refugees still suffered, Jews handed the local Palestinian Arabs their own complete independence for the very first time in Arab history, by removing every Jew from Gaza without an ask of anything in return.

To this day, Jews continue to work with every Palestinian man, woman and child – both refugee and non-refugee – to have a better life, providing electricity, food and supplies into Gaza and to try to give them a kinder and gentler leadership. In the West Bank, Israel helps ensure the peace by working with the Palestinian Authority, in a region beset by wars that have killed millions in surrounding Muslim countries since 1967, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. Even though these Arabs do not recognize the Jewish State, my Jewish cousins cover them in an umbrella of safety from the wars of the Middle East.

It was both my ancestors and my cousins of today that gave up their homes and dignity for the Palestinian Arabs, even after the deep Jewish longing for a return to their homeland after two thousand years, so that the Arabs would know peace and calm after the trauma of the Nakba.

However, while the Palestinians in Gaza have complete independence they still unfortunately suffer, and I think about whether there could have been a better way. Perhaps removing all of the Jews as the Arabs wanted was a mistake. Perhaps asking the Arabs for nothing in return was a poor decision. If so, the promotion of more coexistence in the West Bank may be a better course to alleviate any remaining Arab suffering.

Perhaps there should be two Jewish States: the one with the boundaries of Israel today and a distinct second one in Judea and Samaria. Maybe Israel and the world will create a fund to expand investment in the economy and Jewish homes and businesses throughout Judea and Samaria so another Start-Up democracy can spring up between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

I am awed by how much the Jews have done for Palestinian Arabs over the past 100 years and how much more they continue to be willing to do together, even at the cost of their own dreams and dignity. While there is much that needs to be done for the Arabs impacted by the Nakba, I am comforted knowing that Israeli Jews made, and continue to make, so many accommodations to help settle the Palestinians peacefully.”

Tlaib may be right: it does make you feel better to complement yourself.

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The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Mahmoud Abbas’s Particular Anti-Zionist Holocaust Denial

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The Debate About Two States is Between Arabs Themselves and Jews Themselves

Posted on April 15, 2019 by First.One.Through

The common refrain surrounding the Arab-Israeli Conflict is that the Israelis and Arabs need to find a compromise solution that will work for both parties. People on the left believe that Israel, as the entity which is much stronger than the Palestinian Authority, must make the majority of that compromise. For those on the right, Israel is the smaller party that has always been under attack by the surrounding Arab and Muslim world, and therefore will demand that Arabs must make significant concessions.

This viewpoint is valid in concept, but lacks any nuance to capture the situation as it exists today. In reality, it is the Palestinian Arabs themselves and the Israelis themselves who are torn on the path towards an enduring peace. Until each party can arrive at a consensus internally, the only bridge with consensus regarding a two state solution is found between the Palestinian Authority leadership and far left progressive Jews; a failed partnership, as the PA is despised by the Arab masses and fellow Jews in Israel and the diaspora consider the progressives a dangerous fringe group, as discussed below.

The Arabs

The Palestinian Arabs have three distinct viewpoints regarding the conflict, and a fourth approach among Israelis Arabs who share some commonality with Jews.

Hamas. Hamas has no interest in a two-state solution as they believe that Israel has no right to exist. While it may make some short-term accommodations related to a cease-fire or an interim acceptance for a two-state solution, the concept of an enduring peace between two countries is abhorrent to Hamas and all of its supporters.
The Palestinian Authority. The PA is a corrupt and inept kleptocracy which seeks a two-state solution to empower and enrich themselves. It has stated it will make the great “compromise” of not demanding the entirety of Israel as part of its state and “very reasonably” demand that its country be stripped of any Jews while refusing to accept Israel as a Jewish State. From such perch, the PA flies around the world with honor, pomp and circumstance while fattening their bellies as foreign nations pour money into the wallets of its leadership.
The Palestinians. The Palestinian Arabs have no interest in a two-state solution according to their own polls, even if they get everything which the PA demands. They are fed up with everybody – the PA, Hamas, the Israelis and the Arab world which has forgotten about them. They view any and every deal with deep distrust.

This is not very promising. The only Palestinians who want the two-state solution today is a leadership which has no legitimacy as it is ten years past its stated term limit, and the majority of Palestinians want the acting leadership to resign.

A softer position in the Arab world which is closer to the Jewish positions on two states is held by Israeli Arabs.

Israeli Arabs. The Israeli Arabs are eager for a two state solution which looks very different than what the PA has proposed. They want NO RETURN of any Palestinian refugees into Israel. They want Israel to be recognized as the nation state of the Jewish people. They demand institutions that are transparent and devoid of any fraud – all desires which the PA will not accept.

Arabs in the Old City of Jerusalem
(photo: First.One.Through)

The wide range of opinions regarding a two state-solution is not limited to Arabs, as Jews also have their own spectrum of ideas.

The Jews

The Far Right. Israel has a number of political parties including Yisrael Beiteinu, United Right (each with 5 seats in the new Knesset), Zehut and the New Right (which got zero seats in the 2019 election) who support annexing Judea and Samaria/ the area east of the Green Line (EGL) commonly called the “West Bank.” The extent of Palestinian “sovereignty” would be limited to Gaza which will be denied any standing army, and essential be an entity with autonomy but will likely need to be a territory of either Egypt, Jordan or Qatar. Israel would likely never permit it to be aligned with Turkey.
The Right. Is represented by the majority Likud party and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is in favor of annexing blocs of the West Bank such as the Gush Etzion area and Maale Adumim, but would give the Palestinian Authority large sections of the West Bank where the majority of Palestinian Arabs live including Areas A and B and parts of Area C. There would be no admittance of any Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs). Good news is that the Israelis just held elections so there is clarity that this is the majority consensus view.
The Left.The left is represented by the Blue and White party which came in second in the Israel elections. They would allow as many as 100,000 SAPs into Israel as part of a peace deal and give virtually the entirety of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem to the PA. A bit further to the left in Israel are the Labor and Meretz parties in Israel (6 and 4 seats, respectively) and in the diaspora in groups like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum who oppose the notion of Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish people.
The Far Left. Believes that Israel should cease to exist as a Jewish State. They advocate for folding all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza into a bi-national state with no special rights or privileges for Jews. Essentially the Hamas platform, without the murder of Jews, but with all of the demonization. There is virtually no one in Israel with such views, but is in vocal extremist diaspora organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, the New Israel Fund and Code Pink.

Lining up the groups against each other reveals interesting bedfellows between Arabs and Jews:

Hamas <> JVP/ Code Pink
the PA <> Labor/ J Street
Israeli Arabs <> Likud/ Republican Jewish Coalition
some Israeli Arabs <> Yisrael Beiteinu/ the New Right
The Palestinians <> everyone who has given up hope for any solution

Hamas, JVP, Code Pink, Students for Justice in Palestine and similar groups have tried to gain legitimacy in the public sphere. Former US President Jimmy Carter blessed Hamas despite its vile antisemitic charter and the United Nations has sought to fold it into the Palestinian Authority. Groups like SJP are getting awards on college campuses like New York University. These are hate groups and should be condemned and boycotted by everyone who wants to see an enduring peace in the Middle East. They will never be accepted by any Israeli administration forging a peace settlement, and will only make Israelis move further rightward.

J Street and progressives around the world have been reaching out to the PA as the best chance for peace. However, the PA is despised and disrespected by Palestinians. Until there are legitimate Palestinian elections, reaching out to the PA is a fool’s errand. Most Jews and conservatives see through the chimera and think J Street’s moves to weaken Israel and go against the Israeli government by advancing condemnations at the United Nations and promoting a deeply flawed Iranian nuclear deal are dangerous and divisive. The liberal media mostly follows this narrative and will promote the PA as “moderate” which is counter-factual and J Street as “mainstream” which is liberal wishful thinking. However, if they can tack towards the center instead of continuing to lurch leftward, perhaps they can be part of forging an enduring solution instead of today’s alt-left miasma.

For their part, Israeli Arabs and Likud consider the past decade a tremendous success. While the neighboring region had wars killing nearly a million people in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other countries; with millions of war refugees scattered around the world; military coups taking over Egypt and almost Turkey; and heads of state chopped off in Libya, Israel was relatively calm. When the financial markets took the western world into an abyss, Israel emerged unscathed and its economy boomed. Riding the status quo has worked, and selectively extending that secret sauce with more global partnerships and annexing blocs of the West Bank are logical next steps.

However, the masses are unhappy. The lack of self-determination for the SAPs is not in anyone’s interest and everyone should want to see a resolution to their status. But with no consensus between the Arabs themselves and Israelis themselves, there is little hope for an enduring peace anytime soon.

It may therefore be time for some Israeli Arabs to assume a leadership role in the negotiations to help both the Arabs and Jews each reach a centrist consensus among themselves, and then ultimately with each other.

Israeli Arab women entering the Western Wall Plaza
(Photo: FirstOneThrough)

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What the Palestinians Were Thinking While Israelis Were Voting

Posted on April 10, 2019 by First.One.Through

While the Israelis went to the polls again to elect their government in a democratic process, the Palestinian Arabs could only watch with envy. They have not held an election since 2006, when they elected the terrorist group Hamas to 58% of Parliament. They last got to vote for a president in 2005 for what was supposed to be a four-year term. Mahmoud Abbas has opted to not hold elections for 10-plus years passed his expiry date and counting.

Political pundits will comment about what the new Israeli government will mean for the peace process, as if the tango just involved a single party. In fairness, the ineptitude and corruption of Palestinian Authority which cannot even broker a peace between the rival Fatah and Hamas parties make them easy to ignore as a counter-party for Israel. But if one wants to actually be able to achieve an enduring peace, it is important to understand what Palestinian Arabs think about their situation and the Jewish State next door.

The latest Palestinian poll results were released on April 9, 2019, on the same day as the Israeli elections, and reflect polling done March 13-16. Here is snapshot of some of the findings:

60% of Palestinians want acting-President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, with 62% being dissatisfied with his job performance
Only 54% of Palestinians believe that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, a low-water mark
More Palestinians blame their own leaders for the conditions in Gaza than Israel
50% of Palestinians oppose the two-state solution; more people in Gaza support two states than people in the West Bank
Even if the Peace Plan contained everything that Abbas currently claims to desire (East Jerusalem capital, 1967 borders, return of refugees) only 43% of Palestinians would vote in favor of it and 52% would reject it
47% support a return to armed intifada
71% want an armed battalion to exist outside of the control of the Palestinian Authority
64% oppose the Palestinian Authority engaging with the Trump Administration
60% fear for their safety if their criticize the Palestinian leadership
95% of Palestinians consider themselves religious

Based on these results, there is no pathway towards an enduring peace anytime in the near-future regardless of who leads the State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs have no faith in their own leadership and no interest in accepting the most generous two-state solution (which Israel wouldn’t offer anyway).

It is therefore ridiculous to look at the Israeli elections through the prism of a peace process. Instead, the orientation should be about shrinking the conflict with the Stateless Arabs (SAPs); dealing with Iran and Hezbollah; establishing more diplomatic and trading partners around the world; continuing to build the economy; developing a comprehensive housing strategy; and bringing the devout communities (Haredi and Arabs) into the workforce and out of poverty.

We wish the new Israeli government best of luck in tackling these issues.

The Menorah outside of the Knesset
(photo: FirstOneThrough)

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The United Nations Bias Between Jews and Palestinians Regarding Property Rights

Posted on April 9, 2019 by First.One.Through

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In it, the global body sought to ensure that all people had basic human rights as laid out in the preamble:

“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,”

Such rights afforded to all people included the right to own property as enumerated in Article 17:

“(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.”

With such understanding, it is worth delving into the rights of Jews and Arabs to own property in the holy land.

Jews Owning Property in the Holy Land

Even before the UDHR was codified, international law encouraged Jews to live and settle throughout Palestine, which at the time included areas which today are commonly called, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan. The Mandate of Palestine of 1922 stated clearly the mission to “secure the establishment of the Jewish national home,” and encourage “close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.” Further, the law laid out that “[n]o discrimination of any kind shall be made between the inhabitants of Palestine on the ground of race, religion or language. No person shall be excluded from Palestine on the sole ground of his religious belief.”

International law stated that everyone – Jew, Arab and all others – could live throughout the land, but it was specifically Jews who were encouraged to settle the land and establish a national home throughout the entirety of the Palestine Mandate. Article 25 of the Mandate did allow the British to separate off the area east of the Jordan River (now known as Jordan), but it still forbade such entity from banning people from living and owning property because of their religion.

But that’s precisely what happened.

On September 23, 1922, the British separated that area into “Transjordan” and soon recognized a new government there. That government believed that Jews had no rights to own land. When Jordan invaded Israel in 1948 and took over the area now known as the “West Bank” and eastern Jerusalem, it evicted every Jew. When Jordan passed a nationality law in 1954, it specifically forbade the Jews from eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank from getting citizenship. The Jordanians also passed a law that made it a capital offense for any Arab to sell land to a Jew. The Palestinian Authority has proudly inherited and maintained that policy today.

And the world seemed to endorse this Jew-free formula.

Even beyond the dozens of Muslim states which refused to recognize the basic existence of Israel, in 2014, former US President Barack Obama chastised Jews for legally buying homes in the predominantly Arab section of eastern Jerusalem stating that the “US condemns the recent occupation of residential buildings in the neighborhood of Silwan by people whose agenda provokes tensions.” The inherent dignity of Jews to own property was viewed as secondary to the demands of the antisemitic Arab neighbors.

For Muslims nations, progressives and much of the world, the inalienable human right to own property did not cover Jews, and in their homeland, no less.

Arabs With Rights to Ancestors’ Homes

In stark contrast to Jews who uniquely have been determined as not worthy of basic human rights and dignity, the United Nations extended the property rights for Palestinian Arabs that do not exist for any other group of people.

On November 22, 1974 the UN General Assembly passed A/RES/3236 (XXIX) which granted Palestinian Arabs the rights to not just own property but the “inalienable right” to go actually “return” to homes and property where ancestors lived generations ago.

“2. Reaffirms also the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for their return;”

The concept was and remains without precedent. Do Americans have the right to return to homes in other continents where great grandparents lived 100 years ago? Even more outrageous, most of the local Arabs in Palestine did not own the house or land; it was mostly owned by wealthy people from other areas including Turkey and Syria. That is why the UNRWA definition of a “refugee” simply states that it is for “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine,” not that they OWNED any property. Even more, the Palestinian “refugees” which concern the UN simply lived in Palestine between 1946 and 1948, with most having moved to the area from neighboring Arab lands in the preceding years.

Not surprisingly, the UN branded “Zionism is a form of racism,” and “a threat to world peace” just a year later as it pushed resolutions to eliminate Jewish rights and dignity while advancing those of the Arabs in their midst.

Jews have been uniquely stripped of their “inalienable rights” to purchase and own homes in the Jewish homeland, while Palestinian Arabs have been uniquely granted “inalienable rights” to move to houses and villages which no longer exist in a foreign country because ancestors once lived and worked there, even if they were just renting for a couple of years.

With the absurdity of such biased declarations, why should Israel pay any heed to the rantings of the rabidly antisemitic and biased body?

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The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians”

No Jews Allowed in Palestine

The Parameters of Palestinian Dignity

Compensation Fund for Palestinian Arabs’ and MENA Jews’ Lost Property

The United Nations Oxymoronic Care for Israel

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

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