Wrong, Sen. Warren - creating a PA state is not 'official US policy'

Stephen M. Flatow: Wrong, Sen. Warren - creating a PA state is not 'official US policy'

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren has to get her facts straight when it comes to creating a state out of the Palestinian Authority.

My latest column on Arutz Sheva deals with Senator Elizabeth Warren's belief that the so-called "two state solution" is official US government policy.

Here's the column:

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren has raised eyebrows with her not-so-subtle threat to withhold U.S. aid from Israel in order to extract Israeli concessions. But there was another disturbing element to Warren’s statement that is being overlooked.

“It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution, and if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, then everything is on the table,” Warren said at an Iowa campaign event this past week, in response to a question about whether she would use aid to pressure Israel.

“Official U.S. policy”?  Not even close.

It is not the policy of the Trump administration to support creating a Palestinian Arab state. In fact, administration officials have specifically said that their forthcoming proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement does not include a Palestinian state.

The London Guardian reported on September 5:  “Although little is known for certain about the Kushner-Greenblatt plan, Trump officials have made it clear it will not commit to supporting the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel…” Other media outlets have reported likewise.

But it didn’t start with President Trump.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower didn’t call for creating a Palestinian state. Neither did Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush. 

In addition, neither Bill Clinton nor Jimmy Carter ever publicly called for a Palestinian state while they were president. Palestinian statehood was not “official U.S. policy” during their administrations.

The first U.S. president to publicly call for a Palestinian state was George W. Bush. That was in 2002. But, significantly, Bush conditioned it on the Palestinians electing a new leadership, and permanently abandoning terrorism. Needless to say, the Palestinians never met those conditions. 

The first—and still only—sitting American president to call for creating a Palestinian state without preconditions was Barack Obama.

There are good reasons why Palestinian statehood has been “official U.S. policy” during only one administration in the past sixty-plus years:

—The Palestinian Arabs have a long record of fomenting regional instability, including an armed conflict with King Hussein of Jordan and a civil war in Lebanon. It’s only a matter of time before a Palestinian state would stir up turmoil and mayhem throughout the region. How would regional chaos be good for America?

—The Palestinians have always allied themselves with the most extreme and aggressive regimes in the world, including the Soviet Union, North Korea and Iran. “Palestine” would become a proxy-state for the world’s worst rogue regimes. How would an Iranian port in Gaza be good for America?

—From the Palestinian Authority’s practices over the past 24 years, we know what kind of state they would have: Islam would be the state religion; elections would be held rarely, if ever; dissidents would be tortured and suppressed; Christians would be intimidated; women would be second-class citizens. How would creating a regime that represent the opposite of American values be good for America?

—Creating a Palestinian state would reduce America’s only real ally in the region, Israel, to just nine miles wide. Making Israel so vulnerable would not only endanger the Jewish state, but would also undermine the confidence of all of America’s allies, and call into doubt the value of America’s promises. How could that be good for America’s strategic position in the Middle East, or its reputation anywhere in the world?

In short, the establishment of a Palestinian Arab fascist dictatorship—for that is certainly what it would be—would be bad for American values, bad for American interests, and bad for America’s allies.

I understand why advocates of the Palestinian cause like to claim that a Palestinian state is longstanding U.S. policy. It makes the idea sound more legitimate. It creates an air of inevitability. But it’s a lie. Somebody needs to explain that to Senator Warren.

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I am pleased to announce that my book, "A Father's Story, My Fight For Justice Against Iranian Terror," is now available on Kindle.

Terrorists as heroes. Is that a way to raise children?

Mixing sports and terrorism

The Palestinian Authority’s Karate Federation recently held a “Sisters of Dalal Mughrabi Championship for Young Women,” named for a cherished mass murderess "heroine."

You have to ask why?  I explore this phenomenon in my recent column on Arutz Sheva, Israel National News.

Here in America we often have debates about whether it’s appropriate to mix sports with politics—whether athletes should speak out on political or social controversies. But in Palestinian Arab society, there is no such debate. Sports are a major platform for glorifying and promoting terrorism against Jews.

Using sports events to glorify mass murder clearly contradicts the spirit of peaceful international sporting competition.
The Palestinian Authority’s Karate Federation recently held a “Sisters of Dalal Mughrabi Championship for Young Women.”  Normal societies name sports events after a prominent figure in that sport, or after the donors who made the event possible. Not Palestinian society; it names sports events after its most cherished heroes—those who have massacred Jews.

On March 9, 1978, Ms. Mughrabi —who was just 19 years old at the time— led a squad of 13 Fatah terrorists that landed in several small boats on Israel's shore. Another young woman, Gail Rubin, happened to be on the beachfront that morning.  

Gail, an American Jewish nature photographer, was taking photos of rare birds near the water. Gail’s work had been exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York City and other major venues. She was the niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.).

One of the terrorists involved in the attack, Hussain Fayadh, later described to a Lebanese Television station what happened next: "Sister Dalal al-Mughrabi had a conversation with the American journalist. Before killing her, Dalal asked: 'How did you enter Palestine?' [Rubin] answered: 'They gave me a visa.' Dalal said: 'Did you get your visa from me, or from Israel? I have the right to this land. Why didn't you come to me?' Then Dalal opened fire on her."

As Gail laying dying on the beach, Mughrabi and her fellow-terrorists walked to the nearby Coastal Road. An Israeli bus approached. They hijacked it. During the ensuing mayhem, they murdered 36 passengers, 12 of them children. Mughrabi was killed by Israeli troops. Ever since, she has been lionized by the Palestinian leadership and news media as a heroine, martyr and role model—including as a role model.

The Palestinian Karate Federation belongs to an international organization known as the Asian Karate Federation, which in turn its part of the World Karate Federation. I have written to both, asking them to take action on the Palestinians’ exploitation of karate to glorify terrorism. Neither federation has responded.

Meanwhile, Palestinian chess players recently took part in the “Martyr Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad Tournament of the Palestine  Northern Districts Individual Chess Tournaments.”

Khalil Al-Wazir, better known as Abu Jihad, was one of the most notorious terrorists in modern history. He was a co-founder, along with Yasir Arafat, of the terrorist Fatah movement in 1965. 

According to news reports as well as the PA’s own boasting, al-Wazir personally organized attacks in which 125 people were killed. Among the most infamous were the murder of American diplomats in Khartoum (Sudan) in 1973, and the above mentioned Coastal Road massacre led by Dalal Mughrabi.

Karate and chess are not the only sports through which the Palestinian Authority glorifies mass murderers. The Ansar Al-Quds soccer club, near Jerusalem, holds an Abu Jihad Tournament. So do the Palestinian Judo Association, the Palestinian Table-Tennis Association, and the Palestinian Boxing Association. 

The international federations to which these Palestinian sports associations belong have an obligation to act. Using sports events to glorify mass murder clearly contradicts the spirit of peaceful international sporting competition. Silence in the face of these Palestinian outrages will imply acceptance of such behavior.

The question of naming sports events after terrorists is not just a matter of symbolism. Young people are influenced by what they see and hear around them. When a society presents Dalal Mughrabi and Abu Jihad as heroes, then young Palestinians will aspire to duplicate their murderous deeds. How can there be any hope for peace if young Palestinians are raised to view massacring Jews as their goal in life?

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I am pleased to say that my book A Father's Story: My Fight For Justice Against Iranian Terror is now available on Kindle.