Judea, Samaria and what those 107 Democrats got wrong - by Stephen M. Flatow

The letter claims that the new US policy could “lead to a more entrenched conflict.” More entrenched than a 100-year-long Palestinian Arab war against Jews and the existence of a Jewish state?

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
27 November '19..

The letter from 107 Democratic members of Congress declaring that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, and much of Jerusalem, are illegal is wrong on so many levels that I wonder if even most of the signatories themselves understand the implications of what they signed.

Members of Congress are busy men and women. I get that. They don’t have time to carefully read every request that comes across their desks. They can’t familiarize themselves with every nuance of the issue under consideration. They often must rely on their senior staff to provide guidance. If that’s what happened here, then they received very poor guidance indeed.

Most of the letter consists of predictable slogans and irrelevancies. For example, it warns against “settlement expansion into the occupied West Bank,” which is irrelevant because the new U.S. policy refers to existing Jewish communities and has nothing to do with whether or not they “expand.”

The letter also claims that the new U.S. policy could “lead to a more entrenched conflict.” More entrenched than a 100-year-long Palestinian Arab war against Jews and the existence of a Jewish state? More entrenched than the Palestinian Authority’s refusal even to negotiate with Israel? More entrenched than an entire generation of Palestinian Arab youth being raised—in the aftermath of the Oslo accords—on hatred of Jews and glorification of terrorism?

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Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism,” now available on Kindle.

A Triumph of Clarity: When the Dutch Stopped Funding the PA’s ‘Pay-for-Slay’ - by Maurice Hirsch

The question now, is whether the UK, under the leadership of Boris Johnson or any other prime minister, and the EU will have enough moral fiber and desire to promote peace, to condition their continued aid to the PA on the PA abolishing its “Pay-for-Slay” policy. If they do not, peace will continue to elude the region.

Maurice Hirsch..
TOI Blog..
27 November '19..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-the-dutch-stopped-funding-the-pas-pay-for-slay/

In a demonstration of moral clarity, and setting the continental precedent, Holland just became the first European country to discontinue aid to the Palestinian Authority because of its “Pay-for-Slay” terror reward policy.

Since its creation, the PA has been paying ever increasing salaries to terrorist prisoners and released terrorist prisoners and allowances to wounded terrorists and the families of dead terrorists, including suicide bombers. These payments, have become known as the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy. In 2018 alone, the PA admitted to spending 502 million shekels (over €131 million) on the salaries to the terrorist prisoners and released prisoners and it is estimated that it spent an additional 241 million shekels (€63 million) just on the allowances to the families of the dead terrorists. The salaries and the allowances are paid irrespective of any needs based criteria. Rather they are paid solely as a reward for terrorism.

When the Dutch parliament was originally exposed to the PA’s noxious policy, its first steps were cautious, calling on the government to further investigate. As the unequivocal evidence of the policy grew, the parliament decided to reduce their aid to the PA by a symbolic seven percent – a sum equivalent to the percentage the PA devoted from its entire 2018 budget to its policy. Having further engaged with the PA, and noting the PA’s refusal to cease funding the policy, the Dutch government decided to discontinue all the aid.

The Dutch decision was monumental, not only because it was the first European country to cut all aid to the PA, but rather because the Dutch knew definitively that their aid was not supporting the “Pay-for-Slay” policy. The Dutch were actually supporting the PA judicial system.

Nonetheless, the Dutch reasoning was clear: Why should the Dutch taxpayer subsidize the PA’s legal system, if the PA itself has hundreds of millions of shekels spare to squander, paying substantial financial rewards to terrorists and their families?

* * *

World governments have been acutely aware of the details of the PA’s “Pay-for-Slay” policy since Palestinian Media Watch traveled to the US Congress and many parliaments in Europe to expose new regulations and huge salary increases to terrorist prisoners passed by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in 2011.

Despite that knowledge, individual European governments and the European Union have plowed billions of pounds and euros of aid into the PA. According to EU figures, since 2007, over €9 billion of aid has been donated by the EU members to the PA and different Palestinian causes. The European Commission provided €4.8 billion of the aid, Germany contributed over €1 billion and the UK contributed over €724 million.

HRW's Shakir Is No Human Rights Defender - by Becca Wertman

At best, Shakir has abused his platform to promote discriminatory BDS campaigns aimed at delegitimizing the Jewish State. At worst, Shakir “stands with” an NGO linked to an internationally designated terrorist organization, instead of the innocent children murdered by the terrorists.

Becca Wertman..
TOI Blog..
25 November '19..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/shakir-is-no-human-rights-defender

On November 5, Israel’s Supreme Court rejected the demand that Israel renew a work visa for Human Right Watch’s (HRW) local representative, ending a nearly two-year long legal ordeal. The decision confirmed that Shakir has been a consistent and active promoter of BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanction) campaigns against Israel for years –grounds for denying entry into the country.

Whether or not you agree with the merits of Israel’s BDS law, ample evidence shows that Shakir overtly promotes boycotts and sanctions against Israel. This includes his efforts to have FIFA sanction the Israel Football Association, supporting US legislation to sanction Israel by restricting military aid, and his involvement with HRW’s ongoing BDS campaign targeting Airbnb and Booking.com.

Without missing a beat, HRW and Shakir’s loyal supporters have cried out in the defense of their beloved “human rights defender” who is being “deported.” However, putting his obsession with Israel aside, Shakir’s human rights priorities appear to be highly questionable, at best.

On August 23, 2019, Israeli 17-year-old Rina Shnerb was brutally murdered when a terrorist hurled an explosive device at her and her family, injuring her father and brother, while they were hiking. A Palestinian by the name of Samer Arbid, who worked in a financial role at the NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and had previously served in a similar capacity at Addameer, was later arrested for his leading role in making, planting, and setting off the explosive device. It would seem impossible for a true human rights organization or activist to ignore this horrific incident of violence, terror, and the exploitation of human rights organizations. Yet this is exactly what Shakir did.

Despite the fact that Shakir always seems to make time for attacking Israel on his Twitter account, this self-proclaimed human rights defender apparently failed to craft even a few characters to condemn this clear violation of human rights. There were no calls for an investigation into the incident, no condemnation of the overt violation of the rights of the child, and no cries denouncing the abhorrent abuse of the universal human right to life.

However, when it comes to defending the terrorist and affiliates of the terrorist organization he belonged to, Shakir’s words flow.

Dear Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Is it that their questions about their murdered child simply aren't worth the trouble of acknowledging?

We're baffled and pained by every aspect of how the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has conducted itself in this exceedingly shabby affair. We're especially troubled by how its leadership disdains us and our questions and acts as if we, our questions and our murdered child simply don't exist or aren't worth the trouble of acknowledging.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
24 November '19..

No one from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy bothered to respond to us or any of our emails, tweets or opinion pieces (one on the home page of the Times of Israel, one on our blog) in relation to their giving an award called "Scholar-Statesman" to Jordan's ruler this past Thursday night.

The issue concerns how Jordan, an absolute monarchy, brazenly shields a mass murderer who happens also to be the killer of our child, a US citizen.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan's embassy in Washington, where the ambassador Dina Kawar blocks us on Twitter, has just published the kind of report we have learned to expect, emphasizing and re-emphasizing King Abdullah II's wisdom, wise policies and how he "confronts" extremism.

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Israel hardly needs another Oslo-like disaster, which confused painful realities with pastoral visions - by Prof. Hillel Frisch

The wedge between Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the recent Gaza conflagration is a clear sign that Israel is deepening divisions between the two terror groups. Nevertheless, the payoffs to Hamas enhance its firepower in possible future rounds, meaning that Israel has to reduce the payoffs as much as possible rather than as the center-left suggests, show largess towards Gaza.

Prof. Hillel Frisch..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,351..
21 November '19..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/hamas-tamed/

There are two possible solutions to the violence emanating from Gaza.

Either embark on a massive fourth round of conflict like the 2014 confrontation and hope that it will bring Hamas to non-belligerency, as the five wars between Israel and the Arab states did, or as arguably happened after Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 against the PA and Fatah; or adhere to the “taming Hamas” approach used by Netanyahu since “the Return processions” began at the end of March 2018, which minimizes the sticks and maximizes the “carrots” for keeping the peace.

Each of these two solutions have obvious drawbacks.

Initiating a massive round, including a ground offensive into Gaza, to exact a threshold of pain Hamas will not be able to tolerate, plays into the hands of Tehran’s regional strategy to use the Palestinian card to deflect the focus from its buildup in Syria, and entails other obvious costs in terms of lives and treasure.

The wider linkage to Iran and its prioritization, in Netanyahu’s strategic thinking, is what led him to adopt the taming paradigm of negotiating with Hamas to keep the peace on Israel’s southern border.

The costs of this strategy are equally obvious. Any carrots offered to Hamas (Blue and White under Benny Gantz will offer Hamas even more) might buy peace and ameliorate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but those same carrots will obviously be used to enhance the military capabilities of Hamas in the future. In other words, today’s carrots will be converted necessarily into sticks wielded by Hamas against Israel in the future.

Rest assured that as the welfare of Gaza’s population improves, Hamas will dig more and deeper tunnels and storage centers within Gaza itself, improve the firepower and payloads of its missiles and try to dig offensive tunnels into Israel – and this is all the more the case if it is provided with a deeper offshore port, the reopening of the airport and other projects that have been bandied by Blue and White and certain Likud leaders.

PFLP’s post-Oslo résumé: Abbas’s dirty little secret - by Stephen M. Flatow

The entire premise of the Oslo accords and various “peace processes” that followed was that the Palestinian Arab leadership, headed by Yasser Arafat and his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, had sincerely given up terrorism and the goal of destroying Israel.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
20 November '19..

Amid all the hubbub over the latest wave of Palestinian Arab rocket attacks against Israel, one extremely important part of the story passed almost unnoticed. I call it Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas’s dirty little secret.

A news brief carried by one of the wire services reported that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) announced that it has “expanded its rockets’ range beyond Gaza border communities.”

The significance of the news, as presented by the media, was that a terrorist faction was boasting of new rocket ranges that could intensify the conflict. But the real significance is the fact that the PFLP is being coddled by “moderate” Palestinian leaders, even as it continues to play an active role in the terrorist war against Israel.

Remember: The entire premise of the Oslo accords and the various “peace processes” that followed was that the Palestinian Arab leadership, headed by Yasser Arafat and his deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, had sincerely given up terrorism and the goal of destroying Israel.

Arafat and Abbas claimed that they had become “moderate,” and that the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority—which Arafat led, and which Abbas now leads—were committed to peace. The PLO consists of 10 individual factions. The largest, headed by Abbas, is Fatah. The second largest is the PFLP.

Since joining the PLO at its inception in 1967, the PFLP has perpetrated numerous heinous terrorist attacks, including hijackings of airplanes and the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister. That was all supposed to have come to an end when the PLO claimed to give up terrorism at the Oslo signing in September 1993.

Except that the PFLP never gave up terrorism. It’s just that nobody talks about it.

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Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism,” now available on Kindle.

Hebron: Where Jewish history in the Land of Israel began - by Jerold S. Auerbach

Whether Zionism retains any connection to the ancient sources and sites of Jewish history is entwined with the future of the Hebron Jewish community.

Jerold S. Auerbach..
JNS.org..
18 November '19..

In the upcoming Torah reading of Shabbat Chaye Sarah (Genesis 23:1-20), Abraham reveals his need to purchase a burial site for Sarah. The local Hittites, praising him as “the elect of God,” offer “the choicest of our burial places,” the Machpelah cave. Declining their generous gift, Abraham asks them to intercede with the owner, Ephron, so that he may buy it “at the full price.” Ephron emerged from the group, and repeated the offer of his cave and the surrounding field as a gift. When Abraham insisted on paying full price, Ephron sold it to him for 400 shekels of silver. Abraham’s purchase marked the beginning of Jewish history in the Land of Israel.

Following the first-century Roman conquest, no Jews remained in Hebron. Centuries later, after the rise of Islam, Muslim sources would claim that the prophet Mohammad had stopped in Hebron during his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. Like the Western Wall, embraced by Muslims as the place where Mohammad’s horse was tethered, Machpelah—crowned by a massive Herodian edifice—became a Muslim holy site.

Jewish pilgrimages to Hebron were tolerated, and Jews were even granted permission to inhabit their ancient holy city, only to be expelled after the 11th-century Crusader conquest. In 1267, a Muslim edict prohibited non-Muslims from entering Machpelah; Jews were permitted to ascend only as far as the seventh outside step. A visitor watched “poor Israelite pilgrims … prostrated, stretching their necks like a burrowed fox in order to try to press their lips against their ancestors’ tomb.” That prohibition endured for exactly seven centuries. Dependent on the mercy of local rulers, Hebron Jews could only hope for a life of piety and burial near their ancestral tombs.

Jews came to Hebron, a visitor observed, only “to pray and die.”

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Jerold S. Auerbach, professor emeritus of history at Wellesley College, is the author of “Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel” (2009).

Like to guess what BBC audiences learned from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader interview? - by Hadar Sela

So who provided their audiences with the better view of the violent ideology of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and hence more context to Israel’s actions? Was it one of the world’s biggest and most influential news organisations with its dedicated Arabic language department and one of the most frequented websites in Europe or was it a relatively new, Cairo based and Abu Dhabi funded Arabic language TV station?

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
18 November '19..

On November 12th the BBC News website published a filmed report titled “Israel-Gaza violence: Rockets and air strikes follow militant death” on its ‘Middle East’ page.

In that film BBC audiences saw an interview (apparently filmed during the funeral proceedings for Baha Abu al Ata) with senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib in which he made the following statements:

“We are on fire and angry and that should be translated into action. These actions have started this morning after the crime was committed. Rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv, and Islamic Jihad, with all the resistance groups, will continue targeting all the occupation’s safe places.”

The BBC promoted those statements to its worldwide audiences ‘as is’, making no effort to qualify the use of the term “crime” to describe the killing of a terrorist responsible for attacks on civilians or to clarify what Habib actually meant by ‘the occupation’ (seeing as Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip over 14 years ago) or precisely what “the resistance” is supposedly resisting.

Like the rest of the BBC’s coverage of this story (see ‘related articles’ below), this report too failed to provide audiences with any background information about the aims and ideology of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, even while quoting its leaders.

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Jordan's King Abdullah II to be honored for profound commitment to peace and moderation. Why?

There's obviously not a syllable here that deals with how King Abdullah II has demeaned the extradition treaty that his late father King Hussein entered into with the Clinton Administration in 1995. Nor about how Jordan rebuffs ongoing efforts by the United States via its Department of Justice and State Department to effect the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi, confessed bomber, Hamas terror agent, Jordanian jihadist/celebrity and the killer of our teenage daughter Malki, to a Federal court in Washington where serious terrorism charges involving American victims await her. Nor about those American victims. Or their "American interests".

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
18 November '19..

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy issued this announcement today:

The Washington Institute to Honor Jordan's King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein with Prestigious 'Scholar Statesman Award'

November 17, 2019
Washington, D.C.‬ – The Washington Institute for Near East Policy will present its 2019 Scholar-Statesman Award to King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at a gala event in New York City ‪on November 21, 2019‬, the research organization announced today. The Institute will also pay tribute to Institute Trustees Merryl and James Tisch, leaders in the business, educational, and philanthropic communities.
"It is our great privilege to recognize His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan for his courageous leadership and profound commitment to peace and moderation," stated Institute leaders Executive Director Robert Satloff, President Shelly Kassen, and Chairman James Schreiber. "In a region troubled by violence and extremism, the King has shown over two decades on the throne that a mix of compassion and strength is a recipe for visionary statesmanship."

King Abdullah II has been the head of Jordan's monarchy since 1999, following the passing of his father, King Hussein. Throughout his reign, he has prioritized investing in the potential of his people, countering violent extremism, and working to expand the prospects for peace in the Middle East. The 41st generation direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, King Abdullah II has been recognized around the world for efforts to advance harmony and peace within Islam and among the world's great religions.

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For the The New York Times There is No Jewish Temple Mount - by FirstOneThrough

The New York Times has no patience to educate its audience about the history of Jews nor the rights of Israelis, as it morphs its newspaper into Al Jazeera’s opinion section describing the Jewish state as illegal invaders of Arab lands.

FirstOneThrough..
13 November '19..

The New York Times has earned and re-earned its anti-Israel bona fides over many years. It seems to want to burnish its anti-Jewish credentials as well.

In a November 11, 2019 article called “Jordan Reclaims Lands in 1994 Accord,” the Times wrote about a parcel of land which Israeli farmers had been working in the Jordan Valley which was recently reclaimed by Jordan. The Times framed the article that the land was legally Jordanian, and that the Jordanians had allowed the Israelis to work there for decades but how now reclaimed it as a matter of course in line with the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan struck in 1994.

The article continued to work a similar pattern, of Israelis living in lands which were rightfully Jordanian:

“Israeli-Jordanian tensions have flared periodically because of disputes with the Israelis over the handling of security at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, a hotly contested holy site over which Jordan has official custodianship.”

The article continued that Jordan had no choice to cancel the Jordan Valley land lease over “Israel’s repeated violations and actions… which were extremely provocative,” including placing metal detectors “at the mosque compound.”

Note that the Times chose to only call the site by the Islamic name, the “Al Aqsa Mosque compound” and not also refer to it by the Jewish name, the “Temple Mount.” It is the holiest site in the world for Jews, and were forbidden to enter when Jordan illegally controlled the site from 1949 to 1967.

When Israel reunited Jerusalem in 1967, it allowed the Jordanian Waqf to have administrative control of the site, while Israel controlled all security matters. The Times neglected to tell readers that part of the equation, opting to make it appear that Jordan has “official custodianship” on all matters.

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The ‘Labeling’ of Israel as an unequal player on the world stage - by Melanie Phillips

The European Court of Justice has discriminated against Jews by singling out Israeli businesses from Arab ones. Its ruling is deeply politicized and disreputable, owing everything to boilerplate European prejudice against Israel, and nothing to law and justice.

Melanie Phillips..
JNS.com..
14 November '19..

As Israel came under attack this week with hundreds of rockets raining down from Gaza, and as it steeled itself for even worse, the Israel-bashers were up to their old tricks.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Justice issued its ruling in the Psagot winery case.

It said that the origin of any foodstuffs, such as Psagot wine, made in an Israeli settlement in the “occupied territories” must be described as such. This was to enable consumers to make “ethical considerations and considerations relating to the observance of international law,” which could “influence consumers’ purchasing decisions.”

What’s unethical here is not the behavior of Israel but the ECJ. Singling out Israel like this creates a discriminatory double standard. No other country with a territorial dispute or whose behavior is subject to criticism has its products labeled in this way.

As Eugene Kontorovich, a scholar of international law, tweeted: “Products around the world are made in many situations that raise ‘ethical’ and legal questions, from Chinese prison labor factories to Moroccan drilling Sahrawi oil. Only such concern that requires labeling in E.U. is Jews living in neighborhoods where they are not ‘supposed’ to be.”

Moreover, the court has discriminated against Jews by singling out Israeli businesses from Arab ones. Its ruling is deeply politicized and disreputable, owing everything to boilerplate European prejudice against Israel, and nothing to law and justice.

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Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for “The Times of London,” her personal and political memoir, “Guardian Angel,” has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, “The Legacy,” in 2018. Her work can be found at: www.melaniephillips.com.

Self-defense for everyone but Israel - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Israel’s critics talk of a “cycle of violence” in which the Jewish state is blamed for military escalations. But the problem is Palestinian politics and Iran, not Netanyahu.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 November '19..

When Israeli forces launched a surprise attack against a senior commander of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza, four likely reactions were expected to ensure.

One was that the terror group would respond to the taking down of this known killer by shooting rockets at Israel in retaliation. The second was that Hamas, the terror group that governs Gaza as an Islamist tyranny and that is responsible for maintaining the ceasefire with Israel, would soon join Islamic Jihad in war crimes by firing randomly at Israeli civilian targets. The third was that much of the world would blame Israel for its initiating another “cycle of violence” in which the Jewish state would be judged as equally if not more culpable as the terrorists. The fourth inevitable action was that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli and American critics would accuse him of ordering the operation in order to advance his political interests.

Within 24 hours of the death of PIJ’s Baha Abu al-Ata—a man whom Israel’s security services rightly described as a “ticking time bomb”—that is exactly what happened.

Palestinian terror groups fired hundreds of rockets at Israel. Air-raid warnings were sounded throughout southern Israel, causing tens of thousands of Israelis to scramble for bomb shelters. Schools were closed throughout the southern and central parts of the country.

Although its apologists like to describe Hamas as a reasonable player with which Israel should negotiate, its participation in the revenge attacks for Abu al-Ata was a given. That’s because the dynamic of Palestinian politics is such that it always rewards violence. Though it is still committed to Israel’s destruction, Hamas has largely observed the ceasefire that has maintained a relative quiet along the Gaza border in recent months, mainly because it’s worried about keeping the peace internally as the Gazan economy has faltered. Its leaders were probably happy that Israel had eliminated one of their rivals, whose activities posed a threat to Hamas rule. But it cannot not afford to stay out of the fighting for long, lest it be perceived as supporting peace as opposed to endless war against the Jews.

That’s why the calls for “mutual restraint” that are always being sounded by critics of Israel are so disingenuous, as well as undermine hope for peace.

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Surprise? NY Times Scrubs "Terror" from Islamic Jihad Story - by Gilead Ini

The New York Times doesn't have a policy to avoid using the word "terrorist." So why did it scrub that word from coverage of Israel's strike on senior Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu Al Ata?

Gilead Ini..
CAMERA..
12 November '19..

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was a “terrorist” who led a “terrorist group” that committed “acts of terror” before ultimately losing his life during a U.S. “counterterrorism action,” the New York Times reported in numerous stories following the ISIS leader’s death in late October.

Those are all accurate, precise terms to describe the head of an organization that is clearly guilty of targeting civilians with violence for political aims.

But now, two weeks later, when Israel’s military killed senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Baha Abu al-Ata, the T-word is nowhere to be found in the New York Times report about the incident. More puzzling is that the first versions of the article, published in the early morning hours of November 12 after the terrorist was killed, did accurately note Islamic Jihad’s terror designation — but that information was later scrubbed from the story.

Why?

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Talking With The Terrorist That J Street Won't Invite - by Daniel Greenfield

‘Shabeh’ in Arabic means ghost. It’s a torture recently made famous by ISIS. But it’s also used by the PA. And these days, Muhammad is a ghost. He can’t go back home. And J Street and other anti-Israel groups which claim to care about human rights would rather listen to the lies of his torturers than to him.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
09 November '19..

“You are partners in everything that is being done to us, you are collaborating in the suffering of the Palestinian people,” the crackling Arabic-accented voice on the phone says. “You think that you are working for peace, but you are actually supporting the terrorists of the Palestinian Authority.”

He pauses as he ponders the events going on thousands of miles away in Washington D.C.
“You are not working for peace, but for murder.”

That’s Muhammad’s message to J Street. The anti-Israel organization claims that it wants to listen to ‘Palestinians.’ But the man I’m on the phone with is one Palestinian they don’t want to hear from.

While Senator Elizabeth Warren and other 2020 Democrats bemoaned President Trump’s eviction of the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic delegation from Washington D.C., he’s all for it.

“We don’t want them. If the Democrats want them,” Muhammad says. “They can take and keep them.”

While I’m on the phone with Muhammad, and Amit Deri of Reservists on Duty, a pro-Israel campus group getting the real story out there, in D.C., Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, and other 2020 Democrats are partying with the biggest anti-Israel group in America.
Reservists on Duty, a group of former Israeli soldiers, whose Shillman Fellow activists come to American college campuses to tell the truth about Israel, have a fraction of J Street’s massive budget.

None of the 2020 Democrats come to visit their events. Instead, Amit and other Reservists are in touch with Arabs like Muhammad who are telling the stories that J Street doesn’t want its members to hear.

Muhammad had spent 7 years in an Israeli prison fighting for a Palestinian state. And when he got out of prison, he learned the hard way the ugly reality of what he had really been fighting for.

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Question - Until when will Gaza remain a bone in Israel’s throat? - by Martin Sherman

One of the few areas in which Gazans have shown expertise and enterprise, ingenuity and innovativeness is in honing their production and procurement of weaponry, with which to assault the Jewish state.

Martin Sherman..
JNS.org..
08 November '19..

“Israel need not necessarily take control of the Gaza Strip, but it must take control of the situation.” — Jerusalem Post editorial, Nov. 3, 2019

“I would like Gaza to sink into the sea, but that won’t happen, and a solution must be found.” — Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Sept. 3, 1992


“ … beyond the furrow that marks the border, lies a surging sea of hatred and vengeance, yearning for the day that the tranquility blunts our alertness, for the day that we heed the ambassadors of conspiring hypocrisy, who call for us to lay down our arms.” — Moshe Dayan, at the funeral of Roi Rotberg, of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, killed by terrorist gunmen from Gaza, April 28, 1956

The Israel Defense Forces swept triumphantly into the Egyptian-ruled Gaza Strip in early June 1967 and pulled out ignominiously in mid-August 2005—erasing every vestige of Jewish presence there that had been lovingly and laboriously developed over the preceding four decades.

Gaza has been an almost constant source of consternation for Israel, well before it took over the Strip in 1967 (see opening excerpt). However, matters took a sharp turn for the worse, when, following the Oslo I Accords (1993) and the pursuant Gaza-Jericho Agreement (1994), facilitating PLO chairman Yasser Arafat’s entry into Gaza on July 1, 1994 to the cheers of jubilant crowds, whose expectant hopes of future prosperity and security were soon to be dashed.

Since then, in large part due to Israel first reducing and then totally withdrawing its presence on the ground, Gaza has evolved from being a terrorist nuisance to a threat of emerging strategic dimensions. Indeed, this week the Israel Broadcasting Corporation (Kan 11) ran an exposé on the ongoing global efforts by the external arm of Hamas to acquire advanced, high-quality weapon systems to intensify the battle against Israel.

Indeed, one of the few areas in which Gazans have shown considerable expertise and enterprise, ingenuity and innovativeness is in honing their production and procurement of weaponry, with which to assault the Jewish state—attaining military capabilities seemingly inconceivable when Israel embarked on its poorly conceived policy of transferring control of Gaza to the Palestinian Arabs.

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Took some time, but for UNRWA, the party is over - by Ron Proser

Donor countries could live with 70 years of fostering hatred and incitement against Israel, but cannot stand for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees to be tainted by corruption allegations.

Ron Prosor..
Israel Hayom..
07 November '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/for-unrwa-the-party-is-over/

When I heard that United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Commissioner Pierre Krahenbuhl resigned, I was shocked. After all, the UN does not have the best track record when it comes to investigating corruption allegations against its own agencies, let alone when it comes to the UNRWA, which until recently had airtight immunity from criticism.

For 70 years, UNRWA has been something of a separate entity in the UN, one dedicated solely to the issue of Palestinian "refugees," alongside the agency that handles all other refugees – the UNHCR. But unlike the former UNRWA never even tried to solve the refugee problem and seemed dedicated to perpetuating it.

Case in point: When UNRWA was founded in 1949, there were around 700,000 Palestinian refugees in the world. Today, their number stands at 5.7 million.

But UNRWA's data must always be taken with a grain of salt, as they tend to artificially inflate. A census that took place in Lebanon in 2017 found that 300,000 people included in the agency's data simply do not exist and that the true number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon was 66% smaller than stated on its reports.

At the same time, the budgets appropriated to UNRWA put the UN's actual refugee agency to shame.

Not only is UNRWA's budget per-refugee four times greater than that of any other refugee, it employs 30,000 people. The UNRCR, which deals with 70 million refugees, employs only 10,000 people.

But it seems that UNRWA's party is coming to an end.

The New Israel Fund’s war on Jewish life - by Jonathan S. Tobin

By creating a mechanism to fund anti-Zionist groups, it is attacking not just Israel, but also a federation system vital to maintaining Jewish institutions in America.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
05 November '19..

According to the Forward, the rationale for the New Israel Fund’s push to create an alternative philanthropic system can be explained by what a Philadelphia psychologist named Roy Idelson considered to be a reasonable request. He wanted his local umbrella Jewish philanthropy—the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia—to allow him to use its foundation to donate money to an entity of his choice, IfNotNow.

A number of federations and many others operate foundations that allow their supporters to create so-called “donor-advised” philanthropic funds to funnel money to nonprofit groups of the individual’s choice. The arrangement is profitable for federations since they make money by fees earned by managing the donor’s money and hopefully increasing it by wise investment decisions.

But, to its credit, the Philadelphia federation refused Idelson’s request.

The reason was that giving money to IfNotNow was contrary to the interests of the community. IfNotNow is, contrary to the Forward’s description of its activities, not just critical of Israeli policies but avowedly neutral about Zionism. In practice, its efforts are indistinguishable from overtly anti-Zionist and often anti-Semitic groups. It also seeks to sabotage the work of organizations such as Birthright Israel that provides free trips to the Jewish state for young people.

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Some, among the many antisemitic lies in official Palestinian Authority documents - by Elder of Ziyon

These false history snippets have one thing in common: inciting hate against Jews.

Elder of Ziyon..
04 November '19..

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics Jerusalem Yearbook 2011 has a timeline of the history of the city that includes direct antisemitic lies, as well as regular lies.

Like these

29 The Jews attack Jesus Christ and his prophecy.

Millions were killed because of this lie, and Palestinians want their people to believe it today.

1929 A massive Palestinian revolution in defense of the Palestinian rights as a reaction to militant and bloody Jewish demonstrations at Al-Buraq “Wailing Wall”.

There was nothing violent about the demonstration at the Kotel. No blood. No injuries. But the Arabs started pogroms throughout the Jewish areas of Jerusalem, Hebron and elsewhere, killing scores in the most obscene ways. This is as offensive as it gets.

22/07/1969 The Supreme Israeli Rabbi issued a statement calling for the Israelis to hold prayers in the Wailing Wall.

And...? The Palestinian Authority is saying that Jews shouldn't even have the right to pray at the Kotel!

Otherwise, the "history" is filled with other outrageous lies:

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The new knavery: J Street’s foul formula - by David M. Weinberg

The organization’s new knavery: cutting US military aid to coerce Israel into withdrawals. J Street is now less protective of Israeli security than Obama was.

David M. Weinberg..
A Citadel Defending Zion..
01 November '19..
Link: https://www.davidmweinberg.com/2019/11/01/j-streets-foul-formula/

When it was founded some ten years ago, J Street claimed to be a “pro-Israel and pro-peace” organization. That was taken to mean partnering with the mainstream Israeli political left to build support in Washington for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Since then J Street has morphed into an anti-Israel mutant. The organization spends its time and money besmirching Israel, smearing AIPAC and other leading American Jewish organizations, boosting President Obama’s dangerous deal with Iran (and now trying to bring it back), and supporting political candidates for whom BDS is a badge of honor.

Its campus arm, J Street U, has become a primary vehicle for conveying the most poisonous messages about Israel to students, acting to block student participation in Birthright, and actively campaigning against support for Israel at American universities.

J Street also believes that it has the “moral responsibility” to get America to force Israel to change its policies on the Palestinian issue. Why? Because J Street knows what’s best for Israel. It knows better even than the Israeli political left – which generally doesn’t share J Street’s radical positions on unilateral withdrawals and mass settlement eradication.

J Street knows how to bring peace to the Mideast: Israel needs to be pressured. As if Israel is the party unwilling to compromise. As if Israel hasn’t already offered the Palestinians at Oslo, Camp David, Taba and Annapolis just about everything they want of post-67 Israel. As if the Palestinians have compromised on their demands one wit since the great handshake on the White House lawn. As if the Palestinians are currently willing to enter peace talks with Israel unconditionally.

Nevertheless, it is Israel that needs to be pressured and shamed, say the J Street moral oracles.