Danger ahead: What the West Bank’s red signs say about peace

From murdered motorists in Huwara to the Palestinian Authority’s vow of a Jew-free state, the message is clear: Coexistence cannot begin where exclusion is policy.

Drive through Judea and Samaria, and you’ll see them everywhere: bright-red signs warning Israelis in three languages that entering a Palestinian Authority town is “forbidden, dangerous to your lives and against Israeli law.”

Imagine, for a moment, an American community posting a sign that says, “Italians entering do so at their own risk.” The outrage would be swift and universal. Yet in Israel’s biblical heartland, such warnings are a routine part of the landscape.

Wikimedia Commons

These signs exist because they must. They reflect a reality that no peace process slogan can obscure: Israelis who cross into P.A.-controlled areas risk their lives.

The danger isn’t theoretical. In August 2023, a father and son from Ashdod were murdered in Huwara while waiting for their car to be serviced. Hamas proudly claimed responsibility. Just months earlier, two brothers, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv were shot dead in the same town. Across Judea and Samaria, Israeli drivers are routinely pelted with rocks, concrete blocks and Molotov cocktails as they travel along Route 60, the region’s main north-south artery.

These attacks aren’t random crimes. They’re part of a pattern of tolerated violence, celebrated in Palestinian social media and rewarded by the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” stipends—monthly salaries to terrorists and their families. When killers are glorified and subsidized, no one should be surprised that hatred thrives. The P.A.’s leaders have said openly what many of their supporters believe: a future Palestinian state should be Judenrein, or “free of Jews.”

In 2013, chief negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted that not a single Israeli would be permitted to live in a Palestinian state. In 2019, current P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas repeated that pledge, declaring that “not one Israeli” would remain.

In any other context, the promise of an ethnic-cleansing policy would trigger international condemnation. In the Palestinian context, it’s shrugged off as political rhetoric. Yet it explains why those red warning signs exist—not because Israelis want segregation but because Palestinian leadership embraces exclusion.

Meanwhile, the P.A.’s textbooks continue to erase Israel from maps and glorify “martyrs.” The result is a generation raised to believe that Jews are intruders to be resisted, not neighbors to be respected.

Israel’s critics call the current system unequal. They’re right, but they’re looking in the wrong direction.

Palestinians enter Israeli cities daily—for work, medical care, shopping—without fear. No Israeli town posts signs warning Arabs that their lives are in danger. And when extremists tried to put up such a sign in the Jewish community of Yitzhar in 2020, Israeli authorities removed it immediately, denouncing it as racist.

The contrast couldn’t be clearer: Jews who stray into Palestinian towns risk their lives. Palestinians who enter Jewish towns go home safely. That’s not a political imbalance. It’s a moral one.

The red signs at Palestinian town entrances are more than traffic warnings; they are monuments to a worldview that still defines peace as the absence of Jews.

For decades, Israel has been told that peace will come when the Palestinians achieve statehood. But what kind of state bars Jews by law? What message does it send when “coexistence” means Jews stay out—or else?

If Palestinian leaders truly sought peace, then they would prepare their people to live alongside Israelis, not without them. They would dismantle the culture of martyrdom, end the stipends to terrorists, and teach children that Jews are part of the region’s history and future.

Until then, those red signs will continue to mark more than borders. They mark a moral divide—between a society that protects its neighbors and one that glorifies their murder.

This post and others by Stephen M. Flatow can be read online here.

 Recognition without reality

By rushing to recognize a Palestinian state, Western leaders embolden Hamas and delay the only real path to peace: disarmament, reform and negotiation.

Western recognition of Palestinian statehood without reform or disarmament is symbolism, not peace—and risks emboldening terror.

This past week, several Western governments—the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia—announced their recognition of a Palestinian state. At the United Nations, their diplomats framed the move as a bold step toward reviving the two-state solution.

 In reality, it is neither bold nor helpful. It is a symbolic gesture that will not bring peace to either Israelis or Palestinians. Worse, it risks encouraging further violence from Hamas and other terror groups who already view murder as the most effective tool in their arsenal.

 

Steve Cadman, CC BY-SA 2.0
via Wikimedia Commons

I understand the appeal of recognition from a distance. But it’s symbolism without substance. It costs nothing politically at home for Western leaders to talk about peace. It allows them to signal moral concern without having to grapple with the brutal reality of what Palestinians have built—or, more accurately, failed to build—in Gaza and the West Bank.

 But symbolism is not statecraft. Recognition does not create security forces, disarm terror groups, establish functioning institutions or teach accountability to a population fed a steady diet of anti-Israel propaganda.

 As The Wall Street Journal editorial page noted this week, recognition is detached from Middle East reality. It changes the diplomatic conversation in New York, not the facts on the ground in Nablus or Rafah. The New York Times, for its part, has carried sympathetic voices arguing that recognition is an overdue correction to decades of imbalance. But what these “pro” arguments overlook is crucial: Unless the underlying problems are addressed, this shortcut guarantees more bloodshed, not less.

Consider the timing. Hamas still controls Gaza. Its leaders openly promise more horrific days like Oct. 7. Hostages remain in captivity. Palestinian politics are fractured, elections are nonexistent, and corruption is rampant. To declare “Palestine is a state” in such conditions sends exactly the wrong message: Violence works, governance doesn’t matter, and the world will hand you rewards even if you refuse to disarm.

 Terror groups understand incentives. If recognition comes without demilitarization, then they will trumpet it as vindication of their strategy. For Israelis, this means living under the renewed threat of rockets, kidnappings and cross-border attacks—all justified in the name of a “recognized” cause. For Palestinians, it means another generation consigned to leadership by warlords instead of reformers.

Real peace requires sequencing, not shortcuts. First must come an end to terror, and the disarming of groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Second, there must be credible Palestinian governance reforms—transparent institutions, accountable security forces and leaders chosen in free elections. Third, the parties themselves must negotiate borders, security arrangements and the status of Jerusalem. Only after those steps are credibly underway does recognition become meaningful. Anything else is play-acting.

Imagine if Britain or France had recognized the Confederate States of America in 1862. Such a move would have legitimized a rebellion before the United States had resolved the fundamental questions of slavery and secession. That is exactly what today’s premature recognition of “Palestine” does; it cements dysfunction instead of curing it.

Supporters of recognition like to claim it “levels the playing field” between Israelis and Palestinians. But leveling the playing field while one side is armed to the teeth with Iranian missiles and the other is a democracy fighting for survival is not balance. It is folly. Others argue that recognition restores hope. Yet hollow hope is dangerous; it creates expectations that cannot be met, setting the stage for more disillusionment and more violence.

Even voices sympathetic to the Palestinian cause concede the point. Barbara Slavin, writing for the Stimson Center, described such recognition as “a largely symbolic gesture” that lacks real pressure or follow-through. Vox columnist Abdallah Fayyad likewise acknowledged that recognition by Western nations is “largely symbolic,” motivated by domestic politics more than a workable peace strategy. Pro-Palestinian legal scholar Noura Erakat noted in a piece published by L’Orient Today that recognition, unaccompanied by enforcement or reparations, remains symbolic at best.

 When your own advocates acknowledge that recognition does not change the reality on the ground, it should be a red flag.

 There’s a better path. Western leaders who genuinely care about Israeli-Palestinian peace should stop chasing headlines and start demanding accountability. Recognition should be tied to hard benchmarks: the disarmament of Hamas, the release of hostages, the creation of functioning Palestinian institutions and the holding of real elections. Without those steps, statehood is not a bridge to peace but a recipe for war.

 The Jewish people have always prayed for peace, and Israel has proven again and again its willingness to negotiate, compromise and sacrifice for the chance at a lasting settlement. But peace cannot be built on illusions. Recognizing a Palestinian state in today’s conditions does not hasten peace; it delays it. It does not empower moderates; it emboldens extremists.

 Those who care about a true two-state solution should be the loudest voices opposing this premature recognition. Otherwise, they will find themselves applauding a symbolic victory that becomes a practical tragedy for both Israelis and Palestinians.

 Eight Senate Democrats Support Palestinian Statehood — Here’s Why It’s Dangerous

At first glance, the surge of support by Democratic elected officials for recognizing Palestinian statehood seems an act of moral clarity: After decades of suffering, political displacement and human tragedy, isn’t it overdue for Palestinians to receive the diplomatic recognition so many world powers already afford them?

Beneath the veneer of humanitarian concern and lofty rhetoric, however, lies a host of practical, ethical and strategic problems that Democratic politicians seem to gloss over—and that deserve a harder look from voters and policymakers alike.

Here are the problems with the resolution:

• Recognizing a state of ‘Palestine’ rewards weak governance and terrorist complicity.

One of the central promises made by advocates of statehood is that recognition will help moderate and stabilize Palestinian governance, especially the Palestinian Authority. But much of the Palestinian territories, especially the Gaza Strip, is controlled by Hamas, a group many nations, including the United States, classify as a terrorist organization. How can recognition that bolsters a formal state apparatus avoid strengthening this group or enabling its influence?

U.S. Capitol, CC0 Public Domain

Demands for Palestinian recognition often come with conditions—elections, reform, demilitarization—but there is little credible mechanism or pressure to ensure these conditions are met. Without enforceable guarantees, what many Democratic endorsements risk doing is to reward organizations that have repeatedly undermined peace, nurtured extremism and violated human rights themselves.

• Ignoring the security realities for Israel.

Israel shares a border—and often shares the consequences—of policies in neighboring territories. Every recognition of Palestinian statehood must contend with the decades-long history of cross-border attacks, rocket fire, tunnels and incitement from factions that reject Israel’s right to exist. Democratic politicians who favor recognition as a fait accompli often underplay the real threats to Israel’s security and sovereignty.

To press forward without ensuring robust security arrangements, counterterrorism cooperation, border control and demilitarization is not just naive. It is reckless. The United States has long had an ally in Israel with deep existential concerns; those concerns don’t vanish simply because a political statement is made.

• Undermining peacemaking by preempting negotiation.

The soundest path to peace would seem to be direct negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, including compromises from both sides. But unilateral recognition—without mutual agreement on borders, security guarantees, the status of Jerusalem, refugees and much else—is tantamount to picking winners before the peace process begins. Democratic support for statehood often reduces complex, bitter disputes into sloganeering. It signals to Israel that diplomatic recognition is the goalpost, not the long journey of compromise.

Meanwhile, Palestinians may be promised recognition without obtaining de facto sovereignty or stability in daily life. Symbolism, after all, does little for those without jobs, clean water or safety from rockets.

• Enter the Senate resolution.

This is no longer a fringe idea. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has introduced a non-binding resolution calling on the United States to recognize a demilitarized State of Palestine alongside Israel. He was joined by a list of co-sponsors: Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). These are not backbenchers; they include leading figures in foreign policy and national security committees.

Their proposal may be symbolic, but symbolism carries weight. A resolution like this signals to the world that swaths of the Democratic Party are willing to bypass negotiations, downplay terrorism and demand concessions from Israel without reciprocal demands of the Palestinians. It validates the long-standing Palestinian strategy of pursuing unilateral recognition in international bodies while avoiding the tough compromises needed for actual peace.

• Domestic accountability and hypocrisy.

Democratic politicians who push for Palestinian statehood tout their humanitarian values, the importance of international law and human rights. Yet many of these same leaders have been silent or weak when it comes to corruption, lack of democratic rule, suppression of dissent and the treatment of minorities within Palestinian governance. Worse, voters within the United States who raise concerns—about antisemitism, about Israel’s security, about inconsistent values—are too often dismissed as being “on the wrong side of history.”

The risk is a foreign policy based more on political identity and grandstanding than on careful, consistent principles. And in democratic systems, that kind of policy tends to produce backlash.

• Consequences: Not just diplomatic, but strategic.

Politically, this position risks alienating crucial allies and donors, both Jewish Americans and others who see Israel’s survival as non-negotiable. Strategically, it could weaken U.S. leverage: If recognition is given without a strong negotiating posture, the United States loses bargaining chips for insisting on peace, reforms or guarantees. It also risks emboldening regional actors who are less interested in peace than in confrontation.

• A call for humility and tough love.

Senators such as Merkley, Van Hollen, Kaine, Sanders, Peter Welch, Tina Smith, Baldwin and Hirono may believe that they are advancing peace by championing Palestinian statehood, but in reality, they are advancing instability. By pushing recognition without demanding disarmament, reform and accountability, they risk creating not a peaceful neighbor for Israel, but another failed state dominated by terror.

Voters should remember exactly who is willing to gamble with Israel’s security—and America’s credibility—in the name of symbolism.

* * *

This column and others by me can be read at JNS.ORG here. 

Stephen M. Flatow

The U.S. should stop paying for terror

 

Stop Paying for Terror: End U.S. aid to Palestinian Arab Forces that worship killers

Why should U.S. taxpayers be forced to bankroll those who hail our children’s murderers as martyrs?

In 1995, my daughter Alisa was murdered by Iranian-backed Palestinian Arab terrorists while studying abroad in Israel. She was 20 years old, full of life and hope, until a suicide bomber ended her dreams—and ours.

That’s why I, as an American, cannot stay silent as I watch the United States continue to funnel money into a Palestinian Authority security force that praises and elevates terrorists as heroes. This is not just an outrage—it is a travesty, one that dishonors the memory of those lost and endangers countless more innocents.

Pal. police        Flash90

The Wall Street Journal has published an editorial exposing how the U.S. State Department, through programs supposedly aimed at fostering stability, is bankrolling the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) police and security forces. The justification is that these forces help maintain order and fight extremism. But look closer, and you’ll see that this is a hollow argument, contradicted by grim reality.

To continue to the full column om Israel National News go here.

Stop Paying for Terror

My most recent column in Israel National News looks at the funding by America of the Palestinian Authority's security force. Taylor Force's memory deserves better than what the U.S. State Dept is now doing.

Stop Paying for Terror: End U.S. aid to Palestinian Arab Forces that worship killers

 In 1995, my daughter Alisa was murdered by Iranian-backed Palestinian Arab terrorists while studying abroad in Israel. She was 20 years old, full of life and hope, until a suicide bomber ended her dreams—and ours.

That’s why I, as an American, cannot stay silent as I watch the United States continue to funnel money into a Palestinian Authority security force that praises and elevates terrorists as heroes. This is not just an outrage—it is a travesty, one that dishonors the memory of those lost and endangers countless more innocents.

****

Enough is enough. For the sake of the victims, for the cause of true peace, and for the moral soul of America, we must stop subsidizing those who dance on the blood of innocents.

Taylor Force

Congress must close the Taylor Force Act loopholes. And we must finally send a clear, unwavering message: the United States will not pay one dime to anyone who celebrates terror. Taylor Force's memory requires better.

Read the full column at Israel National News.

Let us know what you think.

Stephen M. Flatow

Instead of thanking Israel for making the Mideast a safer place, we get calls for a Palestinian state

 After war with Iran, countries call for a Palestinian state

Recognition without security measure in place undermines peace and endangers Israel.

By Stephen M. Flatow

 

Stephen M. Flatow is president of the Religious Zionists of America. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995, and author of A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror. (The RZA is not affiliated with any American or Israeli political party.)

 

Israel, with support from the United States, makes the Middle East and Europe safer. So, how is it being repaid? With calls for the creation of a Palestinian state, made unilaterally.

 

Countries such as France, Ireland, Spain and Norway have already moved toward recognizing Palestinian statehood. The United Kingdom and others may soon follow. Some present this as a bold step toward peace. In reality, unilateral recognition undermines Israel’s security, emboldens extremists and sets back the cause of genuine peace.

 

From Israel’s standpoint, these declarations bypass the essentials of any viable two-state solution: re-educating the Palestinian public away from violence, enforceable security guarantees, mutually agreed borders and complete demilitarization. Without these, Palestinian statehood could become a launching pad for further violence, not a foundation for peace.

 

For decades, international consensus held that a Palestinian state should emerge from bilateral negotiations—covering security, refugees, Jerusalem and borders. That was the premise of the Oslo Accords, backed by successive U.S. administrations and U.N. resolutions.

 

Unilateral recognition upends that process. It rewards a corrupt Palestinian leadership with statehood while demanding no concessions. Worse, it empowers rejectionist forces like Hamas, which refuses to recognize Israel, disarm, or abandon terrorism. If statehood is handed over without commitments to coexistence, why would Palestinian leaders compromise in future talks?

 

Such recognition removes incentives for negotiation and undermines Israel’s leverage over existential issues: defensible borders, airspace, intelligence-sharing and control over the presence of foreign forces. One has to ask: How long before North Korean “advisers” show up in Palestine?

 

This isn’t just about pride or symbolism. It’s about Israel’s ability to defend itself from terror and regional threats.

 

Geography matters. The pre-1967 lines—central to many recognition proposals—leave Israel just nine miles wide at its narrowest point. Those “Auschwitz borders,” as they’ve been called, would make it easy for an invading army (think Oct. 7) to split the country in two. Giving up security control of such areas without ironclad guarantees is a risk no Israeli government can take.

 

A premature Palestinian state could also unravel the fragile network of counterterrorism coordination and border arrangements that protect both Israelis and Palestinians. Any future Palestinian entity must be fully demilitarized—no rockets, tunnels or heavy weapons—and subject to strict border oversight to prevent arms smuggling and foreign fighters.

 

Israel’s current, if imperfect, coordination with the Palestinian Authority relies on Israeli control of key zones. Granting statehood before new security arrangements are in place would likely break those ties and create a vacuum—one that terror groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad would be quick to exploit.

 

Supporters of recognition claim that statehood will moderate Palestinian politics. But the Gaza experience tells a different story. Israel’s 2005 disengagement was meant to reduce tensions and empower Palestinian self-rule. Instead, Hamas seized power and launched repeated wars. More than 20,000 rockets have been fired at Israel from Gaza since, culminating in the horrors of Oct. 7.

 

The lesson? Sovereignty without accountability breeds violence. Goodwill gestures can be hijacked by extremists. Real peace requires mutual responsibility, not unilateral giveaways.

 

European governments may act with good intentions, but their actions could worsen the conflict. By rewarding intransigence and bypassing negotiations, they sideline pragmatic voices and empower militants.

 

Across Israel’s political spectrum, there’s broad agreement: Palestinian statehood must not come at the cost of Israeli security. Recognition, if it comes, must be tied to enforceable commitments:

 

• A demilitarized Palestinian state with no offensive weapons;
• A verifiable end to incitement and terror support;
• Full Israeli access to intelligence and early warning systems;
• Agreed borders ensuring defensible perimeters;
• Permanent Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state.

 

These are not obstacles to peace; they are its foundation. Any agreement must reflect the region’s hard realities, not idealism from afar.

 

The desire for peace is real on all sides. But peace cannot be imposed, especially not by sacrificing one nation’s security for symbolic gestures. If the world truly seeks a lasting solution, it must return to negotiation, mutual recognition and reciprocal obligations.

 

As Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann said in 1947 following the U.N. partition vote, statehood is not handed over “on a magesh hakessef”—a silver platter. It must be earned and secured by those who genuinely seek to live in peace.

 

Anything less risks not reconciliation, but continued bloodshed.

This column can be reviewed on line here.

Another Palestinian ‘moderate’ is exposed

The peace-process crowd loves "moderates" but hands out the title too quickly. US Congressmen have an encounter with a Palestinian "moderate" who talks about "fireworks" and come away disappointed.

My latest column on jns.org.

In meetings with members of Congress who were visiting Ramallah, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh launched into a series of venomous anti-Israel tirades.

(March 18, 2022 / JNS) Every time a new Palestinian Arab leader begins to emerge, journalists, pundits and diplomats rush to crown him “moderate.” Well, one of those “moderates” just claimed—to a U.S. congressional delegation, no less—that Hamas has only been shooting “fireworks,” not missiles, at Israel.

 Funny, I don’t see that being reported by any of the journalists who previously praised him. I don’t see any of those pundits or diplomats publicly acknowledging that they were wrong about him.

Mohammed Shtayyeh - Wikipedia

 The latest fallen moderate is Mohammed Shtayyeh, who in 2019 was appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority by the P.A.’s apparent chairman-for-life, Mahmoud Abbas.

 As soon as Shtayyeh’s name was announced, Western journalists raced to paint him as a reasonable, moderate, all-around wonderful kind of guy. They did that for an obvious reason: They want to see a sovereign “Palestine” created in Israel’s backyard, and the only way to make that happen is to convince Israel—and its supporters around the world—that it would be safe to do so.

 Agency France Presse called Shtayyeh “a political moderate.” USA Today assured us that Shtayyeh is not some wild-eyed radical; he’s “a British educated economist.”

 The Council on Foreign Relations hosted a public event with Prime Minister Shtayyeh. Richard Engel, chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, was the moderator. Engel quickly cast aside his journalistic objectivity and showered Shtayyeh with sympathy. “It must feel more like you’re more alone, though?” Engel asked him. “It must feel like some of your Arab allies have turned their backs on you. … Does it feel more lonely where you are living right now?”

 The word “technocrat” quickly became attached to the new prime minister’s name. Shtayyeh’s position is “a largely technocratic post,” determined The New York Times. Shtayyeh is “seen largely as a technocrat,” declared Reuters, not identifying just who it is that sees him that way and carefully using the passive tone so as to cement the idea that the description is a widely-accepted fact that no one should question.

 Palestinian Arab extremists are perceived—correctly—as ideologues, ultra-nationalists and violent jihadists. So Shtayyeh’s journalistic friends were anxious to separate the new prime minister from that image. He’s just a “technocrat”—just a regular fellow who is interested only in getting the trains to run on time, that sort of thing.

 Shtayyeh’s media allies are careful not to remind the public that he used to be a senior official of Fatah, the ruling faction of the P.A. that openly sponsors financial rewards for terrorists and calls for the destruction of Israel.

This past week, Shtayyeh threatened to upset the apple cart that the media had so carefully constructed in order to protect his image. In meetings with members of Congress who were visiting Ramallah, the P.A. prime minister launched into a series of venomous anti-Israel tirades.

 House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) asked Shtayyeh about the 4,000-plus Hamas rocket attacks on Israel last May. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) and Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) told Jewish Insider that “Shtayyeh dismissed Hamas rocket attacks against Israel as ‘fireworks.’ ”

 That’s right, “fireworks.” Which somehow managed to murder 10 Israelis and severely damage countless Israeli homes, schools and kibbutzim.

 Garbarino said that Shtayyeh’s outrageous statement “really annoyed people” in the delegation and indicated that “[the Palestinian Arabs] are not ready to have an adult conversation.”

 Jewish Insider reported that Shtayyeh also falsely accused Israel of “apartheid.” Remarkable! The prime minister of the P.A., which forbids Jews from living in its territory and forbids Arabs from selling property to Jews under penalty of death, accuses the Jews of apartheid.

 According to Jewish Insider, House Democratic Caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) “forcefully pushed back” against Shtayyeh’s “apartheid” lie. To his credit, Jeffries recently wrote that accusations of Israeli apartheid are “demonstrably false, dangerous and designed to isolate Israel in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the world.”

 Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) came away from the meeting with Shtayyeh convinced that the P.A. leaders have “such a victim mentality.” Rep. Valadao said, “I just didn’t get the impression that [Shtayyeh] is someone who is looking for long-term peace with Israelis in the region.” And Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) charged Shtayyeh with engaging in “revisionist history.”

 The truth is that Shtayyeh is no different from any of the other Israel-haters, revisionist liars and terror apologists who comprise the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. The only difference was that the media had done a good job of hiding him from serious scrutiny. Still, they can’t hide his own words.

 Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney and 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 Terror.” Reach him @stephenflatow

 Rashida Tlaib plays the “Grandma Card,” again

 Rashida Tlaib wants to smear Israel. And she is willing to stoop as low as necessary to do so—even lying about her own grandmother.
 

By Stephen M. Flatow, Israel National News March 5, 2022

 Isn’t it remarkable how some anti-Israel lies seem to be repeated again and again, and even published in respected newspapers, no matter how many times they have been exposed as false?

Rashida Tlaib                            Reuters

 In a major New York Times feature this week, U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) once again falsely promoted the claim that her grandmother, Mrs. Muftia Tlaib, is persecuted by Israel—when, in reality, Grandma lives under the rule of the Palestinian Authority, not Israel.

 Yet Tlaib keeps repeating the lie, and New York Times reporter Rozina Ali either didn’t bother, or didn’t want to, do the elementary fact-checking on Tlaib’s claims.

 The narrative of the ‘mistreated grandmother’ —sure to elicit readers’ sympathy— was a major part of the March 3 article. It repeatedly referred to Israel’s supposedly harsh “occupation of the West Bank,” followed by mentions of the fact that Tlaib’s grandmother, Mrs. Muftia Tlaib, “is living in the West Bank.”

 The clear implication, again and again, was the Grandma lives under Israeli rule. To strengthen that oppression, the article mentioned that Some years ago, Tlaib “visited the West Bank and saw for herself the walls and checkpoints.”

 Of course, Israel’s checkpoints are no more oppressive than the checkpoints that one finds at every airport in the United States, and they serve exactly the same purpose—to catch terrorists. But Congresswoman Tlaib, and her sympathetic Times interviewer, seemed determined to create the impression that cruel Israel is mistreating poor grandma.

 The notion that Grandma Tlaib is oppressed by Israel is a lie.

 She resides in the Palestinian Arab village of Beit Ur al-Fauqa. Nothing in the article gave readers even the slightest clue that the Israeli occupation of that village ended in 1995. For the past 24 years, Beit Ur al-Fauqa has been governed by the Palestinian Authority.

 In the autumn of 1995, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed an agreement with then-PA chairman Yasir Arafat, known as the Oslo II Accord. It provided for the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the territories where 98% of the Palestinian Arabs reside, including Beit Ur al-Fauqa. The Israelis withdrew. The occupation ended.

 Arafat agreed that a portion of the non-residential agricultural land which Beit Ur al-Fauqa claims belongs to it would be assigned to the area under Israeli security control. Prime Minister Rabin requested this arrangement because that area is dangerously close to the Israeli towns of Beit Horon and Givat Ze’ev, and Route 443, a highway where Israeli automobiles are often subjected to Arab terrorist attacks. But the residential portion of Beit Ur al-Fauqa, as well as the rest of the adjacent agricultural land, have been under the rule of the PA for more than two decades now.

 Isn’t it remarkable how the Times article in effect rewrote history? No Oslo accords, no Israeli withdrawals, no Palestinian Authority control over 98% of the Palestinian Arabs. None of that ever happened, to judge by the Times and Congresswoman Tlaib.

 Ironically, the only oppression Grandma Muftia Tlaib experiences is at the hand of her fellow Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinian Authority refuses to permit Grandma Tlaib and her fellow-residents to vote for their town’s leaders. Beit Ur al-Fauqa has been governed since early 1996 by a group of eleven administrators appointed by the PA. So much for Palestinian democracy.

 In addition, Grandma and her neighbors, like all of the Palestinian Arabs who live under PA rule, have not been allowed to vote for their national leadership, either. PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas is now serving the 17th year of his four year-term. He has accomplished this feat by simply never holding elections for his office.

 Ever wonder why Muftia Tlaib’s Granddaughter-the-Congresswoman never acknowledges the PA’s oppression? The answer is obvious: Rashida Tlaib wants to smear Israel. And she is willing to stoop as low as necessary to accomplish that goal—even if it means both lying about her own grandmother and using Grandma as a political weapon. That’s really about as low as you can get. She ought to try her hand at a limbo dance.

 You can view this column and others by the author on-line here.

Israel’s critics have a new slogan

Israel-critics think they’re being very clever with this one, because it actually comes from a phrase that was spoken by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But of course, they’ve taken it out of context. 

View on line at Israel National News

Stephen M. Flatow  October 12 , 2021

Every couple of years, critics of Israel come up with a new slogan that they hope will pressure the Israelis into making more concessions to the Palestinian Authority. They’ve just trotted out their latest model: “Shrinking the conflict.”

Such slogans are usually invented to try to overcome some obstacle that’s interfering with the left’s campaign to force Israel to accept a Palestinian state in its back yard. The current obstacle is that it’s been more than seven years (!) since Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has been willing to negotiate with Israel.

 If Abbas won’t talk, there’s no way to talk Israel into surrendering half its country. So, Israel’s leftwing critics figure they will wait him out—after all, Abbas, now in the 16 th year of his four year term of office, is 85 and facing various domestic problems. He can’t last forever. While they wait, the pressure-Israel crowd is looking for other ways to engineer Israeli concessions. Hence “shrinking the conflict.”

Naftali Bennett (Wikimedia Commons

 The Israel-critics think they’re being very clever with this one, because it actually comes from a phrase that was spoken by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. But of course, they’ve taken it out of context and tried to turn it into a weapon against him.

 The concept that Prime Minister Bennett has mentioned is that since there’s no way of ending the conflict, then all that’s possible is to “shrink” it somewhat, through small steps aimed at economic improvement for the Palestinian Arabs.

 But critics of Israel see “shrinking the conflict” differently—they see it as a new formula for building a Palestinian state, just more gradually. So, they’ve seized on the phrase and are running with it.

 In a major feature article last week, Patrick Kingsley, the Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times, announced that the concept of “shrinking the conflict” is “taking root in political and diplomatic discourse in Jerusalem.” Translation: the New York Times declares that it’s “taking root,” in the hope that it will then take root.

 Kingsley trotted out an “Israeli philosopher”—which presumably makes him an expert on Israel’s military and strategic needs!— who supposedly is an “unofficial adviser” to the prime minister, whatever that means. Much to the delight of the Times, this particular “unofficial adviser” wants “shrinking the conflict” to turn into what he calls “expanding Palestinian self-rule.” He thus became the featured voice in the article, which took up nearly an entire page in the Times.

 If leftwing groups were honest and called this “solution” by its real name, “the nine-miles-wide solution,” nobody would support it.

We’ve seen this kind of cheap sloganeering before. Does anybody remember “Diaspora lag”? The leftwing Israel Policy Forum came up with that one in early 1993, to describe what it claimed was the “problem” of Diaspora Jews “lagging behind” the new left-leaning Israeli government. Israel was getting ready to make major concessions to the Palestinian Arabs, and not all American Jews were falling in line quickly enough, so the Israel Policy Forum (a creation of Israel’s Labor Party) wanted to shame them by portraying them as a bunch of Neanderthals who were “lagging behind” the enlightened, progressive left.

 How about “American engagement?” J Street came up with that one. The J Streeters know they can’t get most of American Jews to support forcing Israel back to the indefensible pre-1967 armistice lines. But J Street also knows that historically, American involvement in Mideast negotiations has meant American pressure on Israel to go back to the 1967 lines. So, a few years ago, J Street started taking polls which simply asked American Jews if they favor “American engagement in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.” That sounds pretty innocent, so most of the respondents said “yes.” That’s how J Street hopes to get the trojan horse of American pressure back onto the scene.

 The left’s most successful slogan in recent memory is “two-state solution.” It actually began as “land for peace” back in the 1970s, and it had a certain vague appeal to people who didn’t think it through. But most of the Jewish public still thought that “peace for peace” made more sense.

 So, the left gradually abandoned “land for peace” and began pushing the phrase “two-state solution,” which likewise has a superficial appeal. After all, if you’ve got two peoples, why shouldn’t they each have a state? Isn’t that fair? Like all slogans, though, its weakness is that it crumbles when people ask exactly where the Palestinian Arab state should be.

 That’s because “two-state solution” in practice means that Israel will be pushed back to the indefensible nine-miles-wide lines at its mid-section. That would enable an Arab tank column to cut the country in two in a matter of minutes. If leftwing groups were honest and called this “solution” by its real name, “the nine-miles-wide solution,” nobody would support it.

 The same is true for the new “shrinking the conflict” slogan that the New York Times is now promoting. When people realize that it’s just another cover for trying to wring risky, one-sided concessions out of Israel, it will fade into obscurity alongside the various other propaganda lines that have come and gone over the years. Which is exactly where it belongs.

 Stephen M. Flatow, is an attorney and 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 Terror.”

They tried to burn Jews alive. Again.

My Israel National News column posted on October 1, 2021.

I wouldn’t have imagined that 76 years after the Holocaust ended, I would be writing these words but here we go again. Last week, anti-Semites tried to burn Jews alive. And the world looked away.

Joseph's Tomb (Flash 90)

Several hundred Jewish worshippers were on their way to hold peaceful, legal religious services on the holiday of Sukkot, at the tomb of the biblical patriarch Joseph, located in the city of Shechem. The city, better known by its Roman name, Nablus, had a sizeable Jewish community until Palestinian Arab rioters drove them out in the 1930s. Today’s generation of Palestinian Arab terrorists ambushed last week’s worshippers. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the city, did nothing to intervene.

The attackers hurled “homemade explosives”—that is, Molotov cocktails—at the buses of worshippers, hoping to set them on fire. If not for the heroic actions of Israeli soldiers, the buses would have turned into rolling infernos, and hundreds of Jews would have been burned alive. That was the terrorists’ intention. Yet the world looked away.

You know what the international response would have been if the victims had thrown those firebombs right back at their attackers.

I checked the major newspapers and news websites in the days following the attack. Aside from the Israeli and Jewish media, I could not find a word about it. World leaders were not interested. “Human rights” organizations were busy elsewhere. The major news media outlets shut their eyes. They all looked away.

The moral outrage of an attempted massacre of Jews should have been sufficient to rouse the international community. But let’s put the moral considerations aside for a moment and just consider the legal implications.

The protection of Jewish worshippers is enshrined in the Oslo II agreement. The Palestinian Authority signed it. The PA has an obligation to abide by its terms. Israel fulfilled its side of the Oslo accords, by withdrawing from 40% of Judea-Samaria and allowing the PA to set up a de-facto state in that area. In return, the PA is required to fulfill its side of the deal, including the provisions applying to protection of Jewish worshippers.

You can find the relevant obligation in Annex I, Article V, Section 2, paragraph (b), under “Jewish Holy Sites.” It concerns Jewish religious sites that are located in PA-governed territory. And Appendix IV specifically lists “Joseph's Tomb (Nablus)” as one of those sites.

The agreement states that “the protection of these sites, as well as of persons visiting them, will be under the responsibility of the Palestinian Police.” The PA must “ensure free, unimpeded and secure access” to the site, and “ensure the peaceful use of such site, to prevent any potential instances of disorder and to respond to any incident.”

Since the PA has one of the largest per-capita security forces in the world, it would not have had any trouble preventing would-be murderers from attacking Jews at the site. That is, if the PA wanted to prevent them. But it doesn’t. In fact, the PA, through its anti-Jewish incitement in its mosques, media and schools, encourages Palestinian Arabs to aspire to kill Jews. Hence last week’s attempt to burn Jews alive.

You know what the international response would have been if the victims had thrown those firebombs right back at their attackers. The United Nations Security Council would have met in emergency session. The Biden administration would have expressed “grave concern at this escalation” and shouted louder for a “two-state solution.” Newspapers around the world would have reported “settlers attacking Palestinians.”

But there was no way to blame the Jews. So, the world looked away.

“They Looked Away” happens to be the title of a searing 2001 documentary by the historian-filmmaker Stuart Erdheim. Narrated by Mike Wallace, it chronicles how the Allies knew what was happening in Auschwitz yet refused to bomb the railway tracks that led into the camp, or the gas chambers and crematoria.

I am not comparing last week’s assault to the Holocaust. I am merely pointing out how once again, the world is indifferent when Jews are under attack. How long will it be before another filmmaker records how world leaders, in our own generation, looked away as anti-Semites tried to burn Jews alive?

 

This column may be viewed on line here.

Stephen M. Flatow, October 01, 2021