tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35610630578496907212024-03-19T07:57:53.196-04:00Terror Victims' Voice - For those who cannot speak for themselves.Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.comBlogger503125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-4003285682919817742022-09-18T14:44:00.005-04:002022-09-18T14:47:10.735-04:00List of terror organizations is missing one - Fatah<p> </p><h1 class="headline" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Utopia W03 Display", serif; font-size: 48px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 54px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The U.S. must put Fatah on its list of terror groups</h1><h2 style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #706f6f; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Even Fatah officials admit that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades is the “military arm” of the party. </h2><div><br /></div><div>By Stephen M, Flatow</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Imagine if the ruling party of any country announced that it had begun carrying out terrorist attacks. Imagine the shock and horror if the U.K. Conservative Party, Canada’s Liberal Party or the U.S. Democratic Party made such a declaration. Yet that is exactly what Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, just did—and the international community is silent.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuViLYOTv266oJP70z9miZ4-SHArtcw5QnTeVe546658Hc8y7VgI9KspIBz5-iaqWtpb8Y14EFxSeHul8lYeaOcWrGp78AfZGLwGOvwvzxnv8nImYIOderkuDVvNmH_6y2GQaoJ8k_Zctd54trxeFaYFByAKRCJWgOKTr-nfi5J5SSRP-OPwbl9xlqBQ/s265/Al%20Aqsa%20Brigade.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="265" data-original-width="190" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuViLYOTv266oJP70z9miZ4-SHArtcw5QnTeVe546658Hc8y7VgI9KspIBz5-iaqWtpb8Y14EFxSeHul8lYeaOcWrGp78AfZGLwGOvwvzxnv8nImYIOderkuDVvNmH_6y2GQaoJ8k_Zctd54trxeFaYFByAKRCJWgOKTr-nfi5J5SSRP-OPwbl9xlqBQ/w181-h222/Al%20Aqsa%20Brigade.png" width="181" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Logo of the Al Aqsa <br />Martyr's Brigades</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p><span style="font-size: medium;">After the killing of an IDF officer near the city of Jenin in Judea/Samaria on Sept. 14, the official Fatah Facebook page featured a video praising the murder. A translation by Palestinian Media Watch states that the video referred to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades organization as Fatah’s “military arm.” It further declared that Fatah “takes responsibility for the operations of its military arm” and that the Brigades “is officially announcing” that it will be carrying out additional “operations.</span>”</p><p></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nobody had ever heard of the Brigades until the autumn of 2000, when the Palestinian Arabs launched what they called the second intifada. That campaign of terrorism was led by what was described by the media as a “new” group called the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But it was obvious that a terrorist group couldn’t spring up fully-formed overnight, with an entire network of highly trained bombers and shooters already in place. And it didn’t. The Brigades was a front group constructed by Fatah in order to continue the violence the party had promised, in the Oslo Accords, to give up.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The most notorious of the attacks by the Brigades were a Jan. 2002 assault on a bat mitzvah celebration in Hadera that killed six and wounded 33; a March 2002 suicide bombing in front of Jerusalem’s Yeshivat Beit Yisrael that killed 11 (including two infants) and wounded more than 50; and a suicide bombing at the Tel Aviv central bus station in January 2003 that killed 23 and wounded more than 100.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">To continue reading, go to <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-u-s-must-put-fatah-on-its-list-of-terror-groups/" target="_blank">jns.org</a></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-65767782274820890012022-09-18T07:30:00.001-04:002022-09-18T07:30:00.166-04:00Terror pays, terrorists don't pay; especially if they are Palestinian<p> </p><h1 class="article-title" data-v-252542d3="" style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; color: #0069b3; font-family: SimplerPro, "Open Sans"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-size: 3.04rem; line-height: 1; margin: 0.5rem 0px 0px;">Abbas cheers shooting of Americans (but gets a big check from U.S. anyway)</h1><h2 class="article-summary" data-v-252542d3="" style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-size: 1.723rem; line-height: 1.35; margin: 0.5rem 0px 0px;">The Office for Justice for US Overseas Terror Victims has never arrested a Palestinian terrorist involved in attacks on Americans.</h2><div><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">By Stephen M. Flatow</span></p><div><br /></div><div><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">As five Americans and three Israelis lie wounded in a Jerusalem hospital, some of them fighting for their lives, the official web site of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is praising the terrorist who shot them.</p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLqPgmLloZ3UxVFhq5KjOTBaWH2K3_QFJuYGkfBkMauPhige_TQ0YqXy8oVwmHNR_wTcIYYFnFhvvg928Eq9rJaaI8uaSo7V7a8LC_O7NmNhosTdtjdNodI8A-tgkWdQ_b680wqmBWYj0S9zMHWBmJQIWn_y4O7zmFBsIuANZXuB9gOPatjEpzvVvqCA/s1300/Bag%20of%20money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="890" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLqPgmLloZ3UxVFhq5KjOTBaWH2K3_QFJuYGkfBkMauPhige_TQ0YqXy8oVwmHNR_wTcIYYFnFhvvg928Eq9rJaaI8uaSo7V7a8LC_O7NmNhosTdtjdNodI8A-tgkWdQ_b680wqmBWYj0S9zMHWBmJQIWn_y4O7zmFBsIuANZXuB9gOPatjEpzvVvqCA/w196-h286/Bag%20of%20money.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>Yes, the same Abbas who will be receiving more than $500 million in aid from the Biden administration this year. Most of the money will be channeled through third parties, but it’s all fungible—it covers bills that Abbas and the PA would have to pay if the U.S. wasn’t paying them.<p></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">Abbas is chairman of both the PA and Fatah, which is the largest faction of the PA. Abbas was a leader of Fatah for many years under Yasir Arafat, before succeeding him as chairman.</p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">Here is what Abbas’s official Fatah website had to say about the shooting attack on the Americans and Israelis in Jerusalem:</p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">“Praise to the one whose rifle only speaks against his enemy. Long live our people’s unity and long live the free hero. Praise to the rifle muzzles, our people will fight the occupation with all kinds of resistance.” (Translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch)</p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;"></p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">According to my data base, at least 146 American citizens have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists since the 1968. The international community has largely forgotten them.</p><p style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "Open Sans"; font-size: 18px; line-height: 1.41; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; max-width: 100%;">Read the full column at <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/358256" target="_blank">Israel National News.</a></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-71672055143825077962022-09-18T06:30:00.001-04:002022-09-18T06:30:00.176-04:00Teaching terror to children, it's child abuse according to Hillary Clinton<p> </p><h1 class="headline" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Utopia W03 Display", serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 67px; margin: 0px; padding: 20px 0px 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why Hillary Clinton called it ‘Palestinian child abuse’</span></h1><h2 style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">At summer camps in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian Arab youths are being taught that all of Israel—Tel Aviv, Haifa, everything—is “occupied Palestine” and must be annihilated</h2><div><br /></div><div><div style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">By Stephen M. Flatow</div><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s summertime!</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfeYvDVNFL_Qzb5wAIc5QzXhonkayZ9ugGpQonI2-o4N5aAuPoFukm_DM6CodqUNaV5rEHJJNEQMpefpBDo8UfCM0fW1BWUh-d6CD7lmPfOjWJviDF7jKkk5Y-lGK9cxfK3-u1tweLiYxjCdvOj6swcOfw3icybEnSWEKPaeJ14VBXf09PAdF6Thrzg/s880/Class-Dalal1-880x495.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="880" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYfeYvDVNFL_Qzb5wAIc5QzXhonkayZ9ugGpQonI2-o4N5aAuPoFukm_DM6CodqUNaV5rEHJJNEQMpefpBDo8UfCM0fW1BWUh-d6CD7lmPfOjWJviDF7jKkk5Y-lGK9cxfK3-u1tweLiYxjCdvOj6swcOfw3icybEnSWEKPaeJ14VBXf09PAdF6Thrzg/s320/Class-Dalal1-880x495.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="color: #706f6f; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">“Summer-camp activities” for youth that present terrorists as role models at the <br />Palestinian Authority Security Forces’ Al-Istiqlal University. Credit: PMW.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>For most children, that means campfires, nature hikes and outdoor games like “Capture the Flag.”<p></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For kids in the regions governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, it means weapons training, skits in which the children pretend to kidnap and murder Jews, and lectures on the importance of destroying Israel.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hillary Clinton once called it “Palestinian child abuse.” One glance at the campers’ daily schedule explains why.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Central Hebron branch of Fatah—the major faction of the P.A.—has posted on its website dozens of photos and descriptions of their local “Buds of Construction and Liberation” summer camp. Instead of photos of smiling children holding popsicles or swimming in the camp lake, we see photos of smiling Palestinian Arab children holding AK-47 rifles. They’re standing in front of a giant banner showing P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Palestinian Media Watch, which translated the captions, points out that the banner also shows the official Fatah logo, including rifles, a hand grenade and the official P.A. map of the region, which labels all of Israel as “Palestine.”</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read the full column at <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/why-hillary-clinton-called-it-palestinian-child-abuse/" target="_blank">jns.org</a></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-87009354871219171442022-09-18T02:00:00.001-04:002022-09-18T02:00:00.169-04:00Munich terror - title to face the truth about the attack<p> </p><h1 class="headline" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Utopia W03 Display", serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 54px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: large;">Mahmoud Abbas and the Munich massacre: Time to face the truth</span></h1><h2 style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #706f6f; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 12px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">“Black September” was a fiction—so says the U.S. State Department.</h2><div><br /></div><div><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The families of the Israeli athletes massacred at the 1972 Munich Olympics have announced a boycott of an upcoming 50th-anniversary commemoration in Germany. They’re protesting the inadequate level of compensation provided by the German government, and I fully support their position.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZROK87K8BheOWKruUnrPFVUHJsqts4J9_pWLvBTWHtrxUulQuqHKhIdK8-Sz6RyaJUzto2TObLpVjyWYeH6slr7uBkqA1B29_SdGeWUK4dPL9co4rnejpRNfqWJZoq6sZ379qJDA0EFkrPvKwO80i21KZ7qit7obXLqJD1Q7y3NFtU8W0gQuH59WAg/s2560/German-Plaque-to-Munich-Olympics-Massacre-scaled.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1562" data-original-width="2560" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHZROK87K8BheOWKruUnrPFVUHJsqts4J9_pWLvBTWHtrxUulQuqHKhIdK8-Sz6RyaJUzto2TObLpVjyWYeH6slr7uBkqA1B29_SdGeWUK4dPL9co4rnejpRNfqWJZoq6sZ379qJDA0EFkrPvKwO80i21KZ7qit7obXLqJD1Q7y3NFtU8W0gQuH59WAg/s320/German-Plaque-to-Munich-Olympics-Massacre-scaled.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">German plaque commemorating the Munich Massacre victims</span></td></tr></tbody></table>But let’s not forget that one of the masterminds of the massacre heads a regime that is currently receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in direct and indirect aid each year from the United States, Germany and numerous other countries.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am referring to Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of both the Palestinian Authority and its main faction, Fatah.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The autobiography of the late Mohammed Oudeh, better known as Abu Daoud, named Abbas as one of the three senior officials of Fatah who assisted Daoud in planning the Munich massacre.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Officially, the Munich attack was carried out by the “Black September” group that pretended to be independent of Fatah.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But the myth of an “independent” Black September was shattered many years ago with the declassifying of a telegram sent by the U.S. State Department to American embassies around the world on March 13, 1973<span style="color: #575756;">.</span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756;">Read the full column at <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/mahmoud-abbas-and-the-munich-massacre-time-to-face-the-truth/" target="_blank">JNS.ORG</a></span></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-81437244965678129162022-09-18T01:37:00.001-04:002022-09-18T01:40:14.252-04:00Terrorism gets a pass from the Biden Administration<h1 style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #969695; font-family: "Utopia W03 Display", serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: 0.01em; line-height: 54px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #1d1d1b;"><span style="font-size: large;">Why does the Biden administration oppose Israel’s anti-terror actions?</span></span></h1><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span face="Lato, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #706f6f; font-size: 20px;">The White House denies that Palestinian NGOs are connected to terrorism despite a mountain of evidence.</span> </h2><div><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Biden administration is claiming that Israel has not provided evidence that the seven NGOs whose offices it closed down last week were tied to a terror group. Yet there is a mountain of publicly-available evidence proving the existence of such ties—and some of it comes from the U.S. government itself.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpkNcmqf8IEE51-i8V3oL05jUQQNaNmxEWVqFxdEa29y12YRt0QczoRsRKGsfNx3e0_1Q1nx3HrzOx5IqqoRo59AJpjedvR2CgeLLgZS0S1KM7Etd-P5MYpfTEUSVq8z0_VRrQWM7SEKOMoiJ0yGKashOtVQ1rjtu7N-pJq1P8XVvY5nz8qvB8KsFxQ/s1267/Plane%20Hijacking.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="1267" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpkNcmqf8IEE51-i8V3oL05jUQQNaNmxEWVqFxdEa29y12YRt0QczoRsRKGsfNx3e0_1Q1nx3HrzOx5IqqoRo59AJpjedvR2CgeLLgZS0S1KM7Etd-P5MYpfTEUSVq8z0_VRrQWM7SEKOMoiJ0yGKashOtVQ1rjtu7N-pJq1P8XVvY5nz8qvB8KsFxQ/s320/Plane%20Hijacking.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dawson's Field Hijacking</td></tr></tbody></table>The administration was clear in its support of the NGOs. U.S. State Department Spokesman Ned Price said the administration “voiced our concern” about Israel’s actions. Disputing Israel’s assertion that the groups were connected to the terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Price claimed that “we don’t have that information yet.”</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For anyone who has forgotten, the PFLP was a pioneer of the infamous airline hijackings of the 1960s and 1970s. More recently, its bloody record included the murder of an Israeli cabinet minister in October 2001 and the massacre of five rabbis in November 2014, including American citizens, in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood.</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If Ned Price and other Biden administration officials are genuinely interested in learning about NGO ties to the PFLP, they should start by picking up the phone and calling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).</p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: "Utopia W01", serif; font-size: 20px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Read the complete column at <a href="https://www.jns.org/opinion/why-does-the-biden-administration-oppose-israels-anti-terror-actions/" target="_blank">JNS.ORG</a></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-10860541124752451322022-05-25T07:14:00.003-04:002022-05-25T07:16:11.816-04:00Whatever happened to the generation of peace - college students back Hamas<h1 style="text-align: left;">Palestinians vote for genocide -<br />What happened to the generation of peace?</h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hamas won overwhelmingly in elections for the student
council at a leading Palestinian Arab university last week. In other words, the
young leadership of the Palestinian Arab community just voted for genocide.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When I use the term genocide, I am not indulging in
hyperbole. I am referring to the actual, legal definition of genocide, which is
found in Articles II and III of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide: “Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>“Acts committed with intent to
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”1948 Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of Genocide</blockquote><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>That’s exactly what Hamas has been doing for decades, with
thousands of rockets, flaming balloons, stabbings, bombings, sniper fire,
suicide attacks and kidnap-murders.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that’s exactly what Hamas has always advocated in its
official charter, which Simon Wiesenthal Center has described as “a Fatwa
(Muslim religious decree) for genocide.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJYq0XUNY1T8JJhtt2aKcgKkAfxr0OS9eDRs0R_y-yGunlQthjAUREyVCh4zOGEIv9ekprh7R2bu8607TPnvsl1ml3SAI0FB9W-ApAnJymrqyUmfSJZk3qKtZvURZOd-DTrN9zBThpB5m8-IqJnMBYe42CFbrf9cS2WgP4VJY9FBkdvdCijGAD9MW4g/s822/HamasBirzeit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="822" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCJYq0XUNY1T8JJhtt2aKcgKkAfxr0OS9eDRs0R_y-yGunlQthjAUREyVCh4zOGEIv9ekprh7R2bu8607TPnvsl1ml3SAI0FB9W-ApAnJymrqyUmfSJZk3qKtZvURZOd-DTrN9zBThpB5m8-IqJnMBYe42CFbrf9cS2WgP4VJY9FBkdvdCijGAD9MW4g/w320-h209/HamasBirzeit.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #4a4a4a; font-family: FrankRuhlLibre;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(photo credit: FLASH90)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>So, when the students at Birzeit University elected Hamas
representatives to 28 of the 51 student council seats, they were making a clear
and unequivocal statement: they want to “destroy, in whole or in part,” the
seven million Jews in Israel.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>This was supposed to be the generation of peace. The 1993
Oslo agreement was based on a Palestinian leadership commitment to raise their
young people to embrace non-violence and peaceful coexistence with the Jewish
state. They promised to change their old hate-filled textbooks so that
Palestinian classrooms would become incubators of peace instead of training
facilities for war.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The fact that young Palestinian Arabs voted for a genocidal
group shows that the Palestinian educational system has never changed. No new
curriculum has been instituted. No textbooks have been changed. Palestinian
Arab boys and girls have been raised since 1993 in the same way they were
raised before 1993: to hate and kill Jews.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>LET ME say that again: to hate and kill Jews - not to hate
and kill Israelis, and not to hate and kill settlers.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The distinction is crucially important because it goes to
the motives of Hamas and its voters. If their motive was simply to secure some
territory and live in peace next to Israel, then many people would see some
justification in Hamas violence against settlers.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>If, however, Hamas’s motive is simply to kill Jews, then
their actions are genocidal. Nothing can justify it. And no surrender of territory
will ever put an end to it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Obviously, not everyone who has been harmed in Hamas attacks
has been Jewish. But, we know who they are trying to kill. And we know it for
the simple reason that Hamas terrorists never try to murder Israeli Arabs.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens. So, if Hamas is against
Israelis and not Jews, why don’t they ever attack Israeli Arabs?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>If Hamas’s grievance is against the policies of Israel and
not against Jews, then they should be attacking Israeli Arabs, just as they attack
Israeli Jews, but, they don’t.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>If they were merely against “Israelis,” Hamas newspapers,
and radio and television programs would be inciting Palestinians to hate
Israeli Arabs with the same vehemence that they hate Israeli Jews. They would
be accusing Israeli Arabs of being evil and Nazi-like. Their political cartoons
against the occupation would be showing Israeli Arabs as monstrous occupiers.
Instead, their cartoons show occupiers with huge, hooked noses, side curls,
beards and yarmulkes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hamas doesn’t plant bombs in supermarkets in Israeli Arab
neighborhoods. They don’t machine-gun bus passengers in Israeli Arab towns.
They don’t kidnap Israeli Arab teenagers from hitchhiking posts and murder
them. The reason is simple, and there is no other plausible explanation, their
goal is to murder Jews and that makes it genocide.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>It’s time to acknowledge the true nature of what Hamas and
other Palestinian terrorists have been doing to Jews for more than a century.
It’s not about politics. It’s not about policies. It’s not about territories or
settlers. It’s genocide.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>That’s what the young leaders of the Palestinian Arabs voted
for last week. That’s the sad and ugly reality that Israel and its supporters
will have to confront in the years ahead.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><i>The writer 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
Terrorism.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>This post originally appeared on <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-707488" target="_blank">JPost.Com</a></i></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-8537621898276721132022-03-21T00:58:00.002-04:002022-03-21T00:58:33.969-04:00Another Palestinian ‘moderate’ is exposed<h1 style="text-align: left;">Another Palestinian ‘moderate’ is exposed</h1><p>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.</p><p>My latest column on jns.org.</p><p>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.</p><div><p class="MsoNormal">(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.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsG6-AbRTCGLVAqLfBtUtHB6tH0RBEfyA4ypFkCuiOJBZ5EmpTZPsDkQ5dXYLRZn1eG45Hs5x9QyOFus4YsGEj2n4Yox6J4vYHF_m-C8bk173ecO4D2r6lKzFFVxi8aivPiyCPn_KCLRI-BtnqvBvn4qaGtDXH9MdVD1G6595INWVXUc54Z3iLmVslrw/s357/Mohammad_Shtayyeh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="330" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsG6-AbRTCGLVAqLfBtUtHB6tH0RBEfyA4ypFkCuiOJBZ5EmpTZPsDkQ5dXYLRZn1eG45Hs5x9QyOFus4YsGEj2n4Yox6J4vYHF_m-C8bk173ecO4D2r6lKzFFVxi8aivPiyCPn_KCLRI-BtnqvBvn4qaGtDXH9MdVD1G6595INWVXUc54Z3iLmVslrw/w185-h200/Mohammad_Shtayyeh.jpg" width="185" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mohammed Shtayyeh - Wikipedia</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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?”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>House Minority Leader <a href="https://kevinmccarthy.house.gov/" target="_blank">Kevin McCarthy </a>(R-Calif.) asked
Shtayyeh about the 4,000-plus Hamas rocket attacks on Israel last May. Rep.
<a href="https://garbarino.house.gov/" target="_blank">Andrew Garbarino</a> (R-N.Y.) and Rep. <a href="https://valadao.house.gov/" target="_blank">David Valadao</a> (R-Calif.) told Jewish
Insider that “Shtayyeh dismissed Hamas rocket attacks against Israel as
‘fireworks.’ ”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>That’s right, “fireworks.” Which somehow managed to murder
10 Israelis and severely damage countless Israeli homes, schools and kibbutzim.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>According to Jewish Insider, House Democratic Caucus
chair <a href="https://jeffries.house.gov/" target="_blank">Hakeem Jeffries</a> (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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><a href="https://youngkim.house.gov/" target="_blank">Rep. Young Kim</a> (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 <a href="https://kathleenrice.house.gov/" target="_blank">Rep. Kathleen Rice</a> (D-N.Y.) charged Shtayyeh with engaging in “revisionist history.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><o:p> </o:p>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</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><br /></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-55331398961793571212022-03-05T23:36:00.002-05:002022-03-05T23:36:27.221-05:00Rashida Tlaib plays the “Grandma Card,” again<h1 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: medium;">Rashida Tlaib plays the “Grandma Card,” again</span></h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="font-size: small;">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.<br /><o:p> </o:p></span></h2><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By Stephen M. Flatow, Israel National News March 5, 2022<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYeh91TpwOgXO7O4tyry-C4e4uHkglyr1ofjyjwkSxN7wXydseTTexRueENOn7ySMZlSfobqmQrMTNZAB97JjRUS8fPBlWMzdNcistuB3lIP1xY-2eFC7UqLhrXffwmTFp-dG7gDHWB2QluyiyyTi1tQykwx4BtWZlvh-cpYe8au5XHKQTN13r5F8Muw=s667" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="667" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiYeh91TpwOgXO7O4tyry-C4e4uHkglyr1ofjyjwkSxN7wXydseTTexRueENOn7ySMZlSfobqmQrMTNZAB97JjRUS8fPBlWMzdNcistuB3lIP1xY-2eFC7UqLhrXffwmTFp-dG7gDHWB2QluyiyyTi1tQykwx4BtWZlvh-cpYe8au5XHKQTN13r5F8Muw=s320" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Rashida Tlaib Reuters</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The notion that Grandma Tlaib is oppressed by Israel is a
lie.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>You can view this column and others by the author on-line <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/323328">here.</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-5250088671230376272022-02-27T00:14:00.000-05:002022-02-27T00:14:14.097-05:00Ukraine crisis shows Israel the international community won't rescue you<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ukraine crisis shows Israel the international community
won't rescue you</span></h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Even though Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is fully
supported by history and international law, and Russia illegally occupies large
parts of Ukraine, accusations against Israel will continue.</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By STEPHEN M. FLATOW Published: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-698728 </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div style="text-align: left;">The Russian invasion of Ukraine has only just begun, yet the
lessons for Israel are already obvious and they’re not very encouraging.</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><b>Lesson #1: The international community will not rescue you.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN8oijOsAk3PeY0DcOhoEsUxlq4vbgLGhj9ImN5oQK7_pP7QfKgTnSxuCC6skur0N7-wmeu3QPgXC3ZJPVChOgCEKixZfmksQJO0QMbwdZ4f6ZmctFPQB0_shxqT_kR78r6fn0BKusJQCW4_DAMbVC8Mjcbz0ga2DmQ26mc4uog3Z6BFxdpw855HjwUg=s822" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="537" data-original-width="822" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgN8oijOsAk3PeY0DcOhoEsUxlq4vbgLGhj9ImN5oQK7_pP7QfKgTnSxuCC6skur0N7-wmeu3QPgXC3ZJPVChOgCEKixZfmksQJO0QMbwdZ4f6ZmctFPQB0_shxqT_kR78r6fn0BKusJQCW4_DAMbVC8Mjcbz0ga2DmQ26mc4uog3Z6BFxdpw855HjwUg=w320-h210" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">People take cover as an air-raid siren sounds, near an apartment building <br />damaged by recent shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine February 26, 2022 <br />(photo credit: REUTERS/GLEB GARANICH)</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><p class="MsoNormal">If ever there was a situation in which the international
community would be totally justified to come to the armed defense of a
beleaguered ally, this is it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Ukraine is the innocent victim of Russian aggression.
Ukraine is a democracy; Russia is de-facto totalitarian. Ukraine’s location
makes it strategically vital to the West. Yet, none of that matters.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Not a single country is willing to take up arms to defend
Ukraine against the Russian assault. Every one of the reasons cited above and
many more would apply if Israel was again invaded by its Arab neighbors. And
not a single country, including Israel’s closest allies, would pick up a gun if
Israel faced annihilation.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>For years, the Jewish Left and the United States (US) State
Department crowd have been proposing that US peacekeeping troops should be
stationed in Judea-Samaria and the Golan Heights. The idea is to lure Israel
into surrendering those territories, based on the assumption that a Palestinian
state or its allies would never attack American troops.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p> However, the American
peacekeepers would flee the moment war seemed imminent, exactly as the United
Nations (UN) peacekeeping troops fled from the Sinai on the eve of the 1967 war
and exactly as the UN troops in southern Lebanon have proven to be completely
helpless in the face of Hezbollah’s de facto control of that region.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Israelis watching the unfolding of the Ukraine crisis
undoubtedly recall Israel’s own bitter experiences with international
indifference in the face of Arab aggression.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When Arab armies invaded the newborn Jewish state in 1948,
the Truman administration declared an arms embargo and refused to give Israel a
single bullet.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When Arab armies surrounded Israel in 1967 and prepared to
attack, the Johnson administration refused to lift a finger.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When Arab armies prepared to invade Israel in 1973,
secretary of state Henry Kissinger pressured the Israelis not to strike first
and then withheld weapons for ten days in order to prevent Israel from
achieving a decisive victory.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>When Israel defended itself against mass rocket attacks by
Hezbollah in 2006 and by Hamas in 2008, 2014, and 2021, the US pressured the
Israelis to end their operations prematurely, thus granting de facto victories
to the terrorists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><b>Lesson #2: The hypocrisy will never end.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regardless of Russia’s own behavior, Russia and its allies
will continue to falsely accuse Israel of illegally occupying Arab territory.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Even though Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria is fully
supported by history and international law, and even though Russia illegally
occupies large parts of Ukraine, the accusations against Israel will continue.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Human rights groups will continue to obsessively focus on
the Israeli occupation, while paying little or no attention to Russia’s
occupation of Ukraine. The UN will continue to adopt mountains of resolutions
condemning Israel and will ignore Ukraine.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><b>Lesson #3: Appeasers will look for ways to appease.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">World leaders who see appeasement as the easy way out will
continue look for ways to appease dictators rather than confront them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The entire world heard President Biden’s initial statement
that a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine would not result in a serious
western response. In the face of intense criticism, the administration
retracted that position. But the whiff of appeasement was clearly in the air.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Others have been more explicit. Italy’s foreign minister has
declared that international penalties against Russia should not include “the
energy sector.” Inevitably, other European leaders will soon look for ways to
weaken or evade imposing real sanctions on Russia.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><o:p> </o:p>Lesson #4: It matters who your neighbors are.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Throughout history, dictators have constantly assaulted
their neighbors. Sometimes they have been motivated by religion or nationalism;
sometimes they have wanted to distract their own population from domestic
problems. Usually, some combination of those motives has been involved.
Whatever their motives, the indisputable fact is that authoritarian regimes
often turn aggressive.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Israel is right to be concerned about the fact that the
Palestinian Authority and Hamas (in Gaza) are dictatorships, not democracies.
And Israel is right to worry about the fact that those regimes are deeply
corrupt, deny civil rights to their citizens and refuse to hold truly
democratic elections. Democracies tend to be peaceful neighbors, dictatorships
tend not to be.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Thus, the Ukraine crisis is a reminder to Israel that this
is what happens when you have a hostile, fascist dictatorship next door. And when
a hostile Palestine and its Arab allies prepare to attack, nobody will come to
Israel’s rescue.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The writer 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,” and a new Israeli citizen.<o:p></o:p></i></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-43475916373771381242022-02-21T02:36:00.002-05:002022-02-21T02:36:54.992-05:00The crime? Walking a dog while Jewish. In the news? No, because reporting Palestinian violence undermines anti-Israel agenda<h1 style="text-align: left;"> Reporting Palestinian violence undermines anti-Israel agenda</h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p> </o:p>Everything about these attacks undermines everything that J
Street and the slam-Israel media and the State Department crowd are trying to
promote.</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>By Stephen M. Flatow </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Did you hear about the young Arab man who was walking his
dog in Jerusalem one evening last spring, and was assaulted and nearly lynched
by Jewish extremists?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No, of course you didn’t hear about it – because it didn’t
happen. Oh, there certainly was an assault. But the victim was a Jew. And the
would-be lynchers were Palestinian Arabs. That’s why it wasn’t covered by the
international media. That’s why there were no angry press releases from J
Street or Americans for Peace Now. That’s why the usually-vocal Jewish ex-State
Department officials were all silent.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two of the attackers were convicted this week, so the ugly
episode was back in the news—in the Israeli media, that is. Not in The New York
Times or The Washington Post or CNN. They didn’t report the attack when it
happened, and they didn’t report the conviction – because everything about the
attack undermines everything that J Street and the slam-Israel media and the
State Department crowd are trying to promote.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>It was a lovely spring evening – April 24, 2021. Eli Rosen,
27, decided to walk his dog along Pierre van Paassen Street, part of which runs
through the mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood of Shimon HaTzadik, also known as
Sheikh Jarrah.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A number of Palestinian Arabs had gathered nearby. “When
they noticed that the victim had a Jewish appearance, they began throwing rocks
at him,” according to the bill of indictment. (A video of the attack can be found <a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/BJADf00tFO" target="_blank">here</a>.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Civil rights activists in the US have coined the term
“driving while black” to describe unjust arrests of African-American motorists.
I guess Eli Rosen didn’t realize that to some Palestinian Arabs, it’s a crime
to walk your dog while Jewish.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The bill of indictment continues: “The rioters – including
the defendants – ran toward him,
surrounded him on all sides and began attacking him with fists, kicks, wooden
batons, bricks, rocks, various objects and a shocker. All out of a
nationalist-ideological motive.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When Adnan Harbawi, 18, and Ibrahim Zaatari, 26, were
convicted this week of taking part in the mob attack, the Israeli media
mentioned an additional fascinating aspect of the story: “The rioters uploaded
documentation [of the attack] to the social media.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before I go any further, I want to emphasize that I don’t
like to compare contemporary events to the Holocaust. I don’t like it when the
right does it, and I don’t like it when the left does it. Such analogies
overstate what is happening today, and by implication understate what the Nazis
did.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So, I’m not going to say that a mob beating up a Jew in
Jerusalem is “like the Holocaust.” But this phenomenon of publicly boasting
about one’s evil deeds should not pass without comment. Holocaust researchers
have repeatedly uncovered photo albums which Nazi concentration camp
commandants kept, to remember and celebrate what they did to the Jews.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There is a chilling book called “The Good Old Days: The
Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders.” The title is from the
cover of one such album, which was kept by a commandant at Treblinka.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It is worth reading. Not because the attack on Rosen was
“like the Holocaust.” But because the depraved evil of which human beings are
capable of committing – and being proud of – is an aspect of human psychology
that is worth contemplating, whether it took place in 1945 or last year.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Those who assaulted Rosen were so proud of their violence
that they wanted the whole world to see their vile actions. They celebrated. This,
they said, is what should be done to Jews.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood has been in
the news a lot lately. Arab squatters have been illegally occupying several
Jewish-owned apartments, setting off a years-long court battle. Meanwhile,
other Arab residents don’t want Jewish neighbors, so they have been using
violence to stop Jews from moving into the area.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">J Street and the ex-State Department peace-processor crowd
have been portraying the Jewish residents as wild-eyed extremists who are the
villains in the conflict. They say that the Palestinian Arabs are victims of
Jewish aggression, that the Jews should be kept out of the neighborhood, and
that the Palestinians should be given their own state, with Sheikh
Jarrah/Shimon HaTzadik as part of the capital of “Palestine.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So now you can see why the critics of Israel – in the media,
in the punditry, in the think tanks – haven’t said a word about the assault on
Eli Rosen. The near-lynching of a Jew walking his dog undermines the pro-Palestinian
narrative. It reveals the ugly, antisemitic hatred that consumes so many
Palestinian Arabs. It reminds the world how crazy it would be to give a
sovereign state to people whose response to a Jew walking his dog is to try to
murder him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that’s something that J Street and The Washington Post
don’t want anybody to be reminded of.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><i>The writer is the father of Alisa Flatow, murdered in an
Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of A
Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror, and a new oleh.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>The above column originally appeared on February 17, 2022 in the Jerusalem Post and on <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-696827" target="_blank">JPost.com</a>.</i></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-54477869813079112522022-02-15T01:00:00.005-05:002022-02-15T01:00:59.809-05:00Rabbi Jill Jacobs calls Mahmoud Abbas an antisemite. Oops.<p> </p><h1 style="line-height: 150%; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt;">Jewish left leader accidentally
calls Palestinian Authority chief an anti-Semite</span></b></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #706f6f; font-family: "Lato",sans-serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I hope she will confront the powerful
implications of her own words.</span><span style="color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Courier New"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; text-transform: uppercase;">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Courier New"; text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt; padding: 0in;">By Stephen M. Flatow</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt; padding: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">(February 14, 2022</span><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #959594; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;"> / </span><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt; padding: 0in;">JNS)</span><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt;"> Jewish left-wing critics of Israel say the darnedest
things—sometimes by accident.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last week, Rabbi Jill
Jacobs—a prominent and oft-quoted figure on the American Jewish left—declared
that “denying Jewish history” is anti-Semitic. She probably didn’t realize that
she was thereby declaring Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian
Authority, to be an anti-Semite. But she said it, and she was right, and it’s
too late to take it back.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB-mWnF1YMZmGuvRLVn6EyAeuNKjurC8XdVN8vJtvKeSwrm_zxPOee3eAoP5KVCDzkW9JYUYUQt43n1EZTG5CZqKj3GiS1RKF3mhbeDmUljWmxN1sN7NlsxZ7ZACeAXaZ-nM_DRI2HCPcyfoxE5ADnuLnWa86VglAPihTekzkh_KLFfWnOhC4Ht0stfQ=s900" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhB-mWnF1YMZmGuvRLVn6EyAeuNKjurC8XdVN8vJtvKeSwrm_zxPOee3eAoP5KVCDzkW9JYUYUQt43n1EZTG5CZqKj3GiS1RKF3mhbeDmUljWmxN1sN7NlsxZ7ZACeAXaZ-nM_DRI2HCPcyfoxE5ADnuLnWa86VglAPihTekzkh_KLFfWnOhC4Ht0stfQ=s320" width="213" /></a></div>Jacobs is the longtime
CEO of “T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights,” which is the U.S. arm of
an extreme-left Israeli group called Rabbis for Human Rights. It’s a small
organization, but it garners a lot of attention because many journalists sympathize
with its pro-Palestinian positions. Thus, Jacobs is frequently quoted in the
news media and invited to appear on radio and television programs.<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last week, for example, Jacobs was quoted
by <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The Washington Post</span></i> in its article about the
Senate hearing concerning the nomination of Holocaust historian and Emory
University professor Deborah Lipstadt as U.S. envoy for combating
anti-Semitism. Jacobs has no particular connection to Lipstadt and no
particular expertise on anti-Semitism; nonetheless, the <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Post </span></i>chose to present her as a Jewish leader
commenting on the issue.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit", serif; font-size: 15pt;">Now here’s where
things got interesting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jacobs made a few
general, unremarkable statements about examples of anti-Semitism. One of her
examples was “denying Jewish history.” And that’s obviously true.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But Jacobs, who
fervently supports the Palestinian statehood cause, does not seem to have
considered the implications of her statement with regard to the man who would
become the head of the Palestinian state that she wants to see established in
Judea and Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m talking about the
fact that Abbas is one of the most outspoken deniers of Jewish history in the
world today. He has made so many statements denying Jewish history that they
could fill a book—and, in fact, they have; he is the author of an entire book
claiming that the Nazis killed only 1 million Jews and accusing Israel’s first
prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, of collaborating with the Nazis. But for now,
I’m going to cite just two of his speeches because they are particularly
revealing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Jan. 14, 2018, Abbas
addressed the Palestinian Central Council at P.A. headquarters in Ramallah. A
few excerpts from his lie-filled tirade:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— “Israel … is a
colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— It was not the
British White Paper or mass murder by the Nazis that kept Jews from going to
Palestine, but rather, “the Jews did not want to emigrate, even with murder and
slaughter.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— Jews in Yemen and
Iraq “didn’t want to come” to Israel, but Ben-Gurion forced them to by
collaborating with Iraqi officials “to take away the citizenship of Jews and
force them to emigrate.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— When Theodor Herzl
visited Palestine, he said: “We must wipe out the Palestinians from Palestine
so that Palestine will be a land without a people for a people without a land.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On April 20, 2018,
Abbas addressed the legislature of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which
he chairs. Here are a few of the slurs, lies and assorted absurdities that he
mouthed:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— The Jews in Europe
provoked the Holocaust because of their “social function” as money-lenders.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— Jews are to blame
for communism because Josef Stalin was a secret Jew.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— Today’s Jews are not
authentically Jewish, but are actually descendants of the Khazars, a medieval
Turkish tribe, “which means they are not Semitic and have no relation to
Semitism and have nothing to do with the prophets Abraham or Jacob.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">— There were never any
pogroms in Arab countries, as proven by the fact “that there were Jews in Arab
countries. Why wasn’t there ever one incident against Jews because they’re
Jews? Not even once … in over 1,400 years.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Abbas’s denials of
Jewish history were so egregious that even some of Jacobs’s closest allies on
the American Jewish left were compelled to condemn him. Americans for Peace Now
charged that Abbas made “vile anti-Semitic statements.” J Street acknowledged
that Abbas’s address “featured absurd anti-Semitic tropes and deeply offensive
comments on the history of the Jewish people and Israel.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">The New York Times</span></i>,
despite its strong pro-Palestinian leanings, reported that Abbas’s remarks were
“laced with deeply anti-Semitic tropes.” And Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N.
special coordinator for the Middle East, said Abbas was “perpetuating
conspiracy theories that fuel anti-Semitism.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">All of which creates a
bit of a problem for Rabbi Jill Jacobs and her colleagues at T’ruah.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to her own
definition, the P.A. boss is an anti-Semite. Which means that she will now
either drop her call for a Palestinian state—since, of course, it’s crazy to
give a sovereign state to a rabid anti-Semite; or she will argue that even
though Abbas is an anti-Semite, he should be given a sovereign state just a few
miles from Israel’s major cities—which, of course, is crazy since it would mean
putting millions of lives in direct danger.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I suppose the rabbi
may look for the easy way out—that is, to hope that nobody asks her that
question so she can go on pursuing her political agenda. But I hope she will
choose a different path; I hope she will choose to be intellectually honest and
confront the powerful implications of her own words.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Stephen M. Flatow is an
attorney in New Jersey 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.”</span></i><span style="color: #575756; font-family: "inherit",serif; font-size: 15.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756;"><span style="font-size: 20px;">This column first appeared on JNS.org.</span></span></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-61953643952256048052022-02-06T09:00:00.009-05:002022-02-06T09:00:00.183-05:00Did a N.Y. Times columnist call his colleague an antisemite?<h1 style="text-align: left;">Did a N.Y. Times columnist call his colleague an antisemite?</h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">We will never effectively combat antisemitism until we are
willing to speak out when the guilty party is in our own camp.</h2><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> By </o:p>Stephen M. Flatow</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
My Arutz Sheva column <p class="MsoNormal">A New York Times columnist has defined antisemitism in a way
that implicates one of his most prominent colleagues.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In a recent column, Bret Stephens described how “the common
denominator” in a wide range of antisemitic accusations, whether on the extreme
right or the extreme left, “is an idea, based in fantasy and conspiracy, about
Jewish power.” That’s certainly true.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>According to Stephens, some religious antisemites in the
past “believed Jews had the power to kill Christ.” And secular antisemites
“believed Jews had the power to start wars, manipulate kings and swindle native
people of their patrimony.” No doubt about it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the far right, antisemites believe Jews are trying “to
replace white, working-class America with immigrant labor.” On the far left
antisemites “attribute to Israel and its supporters in the United States vast
powers that they do not possess.” Again, all true.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>There’s just one problem. Stephens’ description doesn’t fit
only David Duke or Ilhan Omar. It also fits one of his most prominent
colleagues at the Times, longtime foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Jews have the power to manipulate kings”? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Israel and its supporters have vast powers”? </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Friedman has written exactly that—on multiple occasions. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlwOip8_Ct7ML6mGf7rZd2zPUgHO-UbHHvICQ6I21x_OWk9ztjkU3ahcFhSXWCn9-afg-j588JEwAakyEnPOdQpfW636Td9gyKADEbgnE6MifcE7WDG33ik2trDA2A9utkaUDyP__DghnuKygAV_JKpYDYSMKPyPHs2RwmW59wq14viZcdDYvuMh8CZA=s781" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="781" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlwOip8_Ct7ML6mGf7rZd2zPUgHO-UbHHvICQ6I21x_OWk9ztjkU3ahcFhSXWCn9-afg-j588JEwAakyEnPOdQpfW636Td9gyKADEbgnE6MifcE7WDG33ik2trDA2A9utkaUDyP__DghnuKygAV_JKpYDYSMKPyPHs2RwmW59wq14viZcdDYvuMh8CZA=w200-h113" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thomas Friedman - Reuters</span></td></tr></tbody></table>In his column in the New York Times on February 5, 2004,
Friedman declared that Israel "had George Bush under house arrest in the
Oval Office.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On December 13, 2011, Friedman infamously wrote that the
standing ovations which Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were
"bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On December 13, 2011, Friedman infamously wrote that the
standing ovations which Israel’s prime minister received in Congress were
"bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And Friedman asserted in his column on November 19, 2013,
that "many American lawmakers [will] do whatever the Israel lobby asks
them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and cam donations." </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The fact that Friedman happens to be Jewish doesn’t get him
off the hook. We all know plenty of examples of Jews who—for whatever
reason—choose to perpetuate anti-Jewish stereotypes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s equally irrelevant that Friedman himself occasionally
complains about antisemitism. Most outrageously, he wrote on February 4, 2015
that if Israel’s prime minister spoke to Congress against the Iran deal,
"anti-Semites, who claim Israel controls Washington, will have a field day.”
In other words, it’s antisemitic to claim Israel controls Washington—except,
apparently, when Friedman is the one making that claim.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> W</o:p>e will never truly be able to effectively combat
antisemitism until we are willing to speak out when the guilty party is in our
own political or ideological camp. If liberals acknowledge antisemitism only
when it comes from conservatives, and conservatives acknowledge it only when it
comes from liberals, then we will all be mired in little more than a sleazy
political power game.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>We’ve had a good dose of that one-sided, partisan approach
in recent weeks. Political figures on both the right and left have made
outrageous remarks comparing certain domestic American policies to Nazism or
the Holocaust. Liberal Jewish leaders have angrily denounced only the
right-wingers who made those comparisons; conservative Jewish leaders have
furiously criticized only the left-wingers who have said such things. That
reduces the entire discussion to a cheap attempt to score points, not a serious
effort to stop antisemitism.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The same is true when it comes to Thomas Friedman. The fact
that he is an influential journalist is no reason to be afraid of speaking the
truth about him. The fact that one may agree with positions Friedman has taken
on other issues is no reason to treat him as if he is immune from criticism.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>According to Bret Stephens, “the fantasy about Jewish power
may seem outlandish, but it’s far more pervasive than many think.” He’s
right—and it’s so pervasive that, according to Stephens’ own definition, it’s
right up there in the list of New York Times columnists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>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.” He is an oleh chadash.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>This column can be read on line at <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321789" target="_blank">Israel National News - Arutz7</a>.</i></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-62167604292777377222022-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:002022-01-30T10:00:27.618-05:00"P is for Palestine" author got one thing right<p></p><h1 style="text-align: left;">"P is for Palestine" author got one thing right</h1><p class="MsoNormal">The "P is for Palestine" children’s book that is causing so
much controversy features anti-Israel propaganda and deeply disturbing
justifications for “intifada” violence. But it also contains one very important
truth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjiM-wopmVgT-45n-o-Q5Y7Uq5piA6TSCGpa7o0TVDh7yuJht5a34nnxN5E6jzaHF74UvatxVyfk1jBsoJdW9imAP3vFvN83r2wG9HHoLI1cEZo-VYDdILNbYJ_981uvtNyE8rJ8Du3r5wgtR_pR0ECmFLgVTiTcsvG-wSosWovTZ6F0WJd9Gi9RoReA=s500" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhjiM-wopmVgT-45n-o-Q5Y7Uq5piA6TSCGpa7o0TVDh7yuJht5a34nnxN5E6jzaHF74UvatxVyfk1jBsoJdW9imAP3vFvN83r2wG9HHoLI1cEZo-VYDdILNbYJ_981uvtNyE8rJ8Du3r5wgtR_pR0ECmFLgVTiTcsvG-wSosWovTZ6F0WJd9Gi9RoReA=w160-h200" width="160" /></a></div><br />Golbarg Bashi, the tome’s Iranian-born author, decided to
use the device of an alphabet book to indoctrinate children with anti-Israel
messages. The most incendiary part of the book, which has been at the center of
much of the public debate, declares: “I is for Intifada, Arabic for rising up
for what is right, if you are a kid or grownup!”<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The accompanying illustration shows a father and child,
wearing keffiyahs, standing near barbed wire (a symbol of “Israeli oppression”)
and flashing the V-for-victory sign. Victory over Israel, that is.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not surprisingly, many Jews are troubled by Bashi’s attempt
to justify and glorify the waves of Palestinian “intifada” violence, in which
more than 1,300 Israeli Jews have been murdered in recent years.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free
Synagogue, a leading critic of the book, correctly described it as “the
glorification of the Palestinian intifada — a cruel, murderous, and terroristic
campaign that purposely targeted innocent Israelis, including children, in
restaurants, buses, hospitals, schools and shopping malls. … The intifada was
not ‘a rising up for what is right.’ It was a mass descent into immorality.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">In a Facebook post, Bashi blamed criticism of her book on
what she called “self-proclaimed powerful neighborhoods of New York City.”
That’s pretty obvious code language for “the Jews.”</span></b> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But it’s also important to pay close attention to the explanations
that Bashi and her supporters have presented in several recent interviews.
“Intifada is part of Palestinian life, to resist occupation,” she told JTA. In
an interview with Haaretz, Bashi elaborated: “Intifada is an aspect of
Palestinian life just as Bethlehem is the birthplace of Jesus Christ.” An
Israeli-Arab educator named Areej Masarwa added that, “It’s part of Palestinian
identity.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Exactly right. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mass violence against Jews is indeed a central part of
“Palestinian” identity. And that tells us a lot about Palestinian identity. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Palestinian Arab nationalism did not arise because of any
major historical, linguistic, religious or cultural differences between
Palestinian Arabs and, say, Jordanian Arabs or Syrian Arabs. That’s because
there aren’t any. Palestinian nationalism arose as an anti-nationalism. Its
raison d’être is to murder Jews and destroy the State of Israel. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Other nations express their distinctive identity through
positive cultural expressions. The Palestinians express their identity by
bombing, shooting, hijacking, stabbing and stoning Jews. Witness Sunday’s
stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And why does the character of Palestinian-Arab identity
matter? Because the fight for Israel’s survival is not just a military conflict.
It’s also a war of ideas. Understanding the legitimacy of Jewish nationalism,
and the falseness of Palestinian nationalism, is vital. We must understand why
our side is right — and why their side is wrong. So, thank you, Golbarg Bashi,
for helping to remind us of the true nature of Palestinian nationalism. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious
Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa
Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack
in 1995.</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>This post is from my archive of published writings and appeared in <a href="https://www.heritagefl.com/story/2017/12/22/opinions/p-is-for-palestine-author-got-one-thing-right/9023.html" target="_blank">Heritage Florida Jewish News</a> and other newspapers in 2017.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Follow me on Twitter @StephenFlatow</i></p><br /><p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-7953373565063518122022-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:002022-01-20T08:00:00.203-05:00Associated Press reporter admits covering up for Arafat<h1 style="text-align: left;"><span face="helvetica, arial, sans-serif" style="color: #333333; font-size: medium;">Associated Press reporter admits covering up for Arafat</span></h1><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><h2 class="article-summary" data-v-02c3e02e="" style="font-size: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Arafat was clearly delusional in the interview with AP reporter, which they admit today, but he was portrayed as a man of peace.</span></h2></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">by Stephen M. Flatow</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Did American journalists cover up for Yasir Arafat, as critics often claimed at the time? A longtime reporter for the Associated Press has finally let the cat out of the bag, and it’s not a pretty sight.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw9xW3OiwNRoXJweEB7Yz0vP7VYrEMc-ZbE8NJ2TP3IxvlQBW9sCYQQiikgAT9IWX6uPge371JpWiEwQH2QrCBYPojMBm3XQUeqVc2nMdGTwvhvFzbSvJbU4f-Ioq6GssjfdTeLF3R0Nm2CZ_zvnorofNYNhS1JqaYHMY_XcKHx42HIXtbHi70a07a7g=s259" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="259" data-original-width="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw9xW3OiwNRoXJweEB7Yz0vP7VYrEMc-ZbE8NJ2TP3IxvlQBW9sCYQQiikgAT9IWX6uPge371JpWiEwQH2QrCBYPojMBm3XQUeqVc2nMdGTwvhvFzbSvJbU4f-Ioq6GssjfdTeLF3R0Nm2CZ_zvnorofNYNhS1JqaYHMY_XcKHx42HIXtbHi70a07a7g=s16000" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Arafat (Wikimedia Commons)</span></td></tr></tbody></table>In a recent blog post, the veteran journalist Dan Perry recounted an interview he did with Arafat for the AP in December 2001. The date is important, because for the previous fifteen months, Arafat had been leading a massive terrorism war against Israel, which the Palestinian Arabs called the “Second Intifada.” Wave after wave of suicide bombings and shootings, for which Arafat’s Fatah movement openly claimed responsibility. Those of us in Israel at the time will never forget the empty streets, stores and buses.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">“Was Arafat the one sending crazies to blow themselves up in Israeli buses and cafes?,” Perry wrote in his recent blog. “The Palestinian narrative said violence began organically…and Israel overreacted. Something didn’t quite add up and my colleagues and I at the Associated Press resolved to figure the whole thing out.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">So, they set out for Ramallah, to “figure the whole thing out” by asking Arafat. Not by believing Fatah’s constant claims of responsibility for the attacks against Israel. Instead, they were going to ask Arafat.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The interview began with Arafat complaining that he was not getting enough praise for having “already arrested 17 key militants.” (Perry never uses the word “terrorists” a trend that continues to this day.)</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Perry, in his recent blog: “I suggested that if violence so devastating was happening against his will for over a year, the forces carrying it out must be very strong indeed. ‘You are speaking with Yasser Arafat,’ he admonished me. ‘I know how to do it. I know how to do it.’ ”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Read that question again. Perry was challenging Arafat. He was saying, in effect: “You claim the terrorism is being carried out against your will, which means that the terrorists must be ‘very strong indeed,’ which means arresting 17 of them is woefully inadequate.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Having failed to get a straight answer about the arrests, Perry next asked Arafat if he “regretting not doing more to prevent the outbreak,” since “1,000 Palestinians had been killed” as a result of the violence. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Perry was referring to terrorists who were killed in Israeli actions, and Arab civilians who were inadvertently killed when terrorists stationed their men and weapons in civilian neighborhoods, in order to use them as human shields.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The PLO leader’s response? “Arafat said the death toll actually stood at 2,000. I tried to argue, but Arafat insisted...”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Then Perry asked Arafat if he regretted not accepting Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s reported offer of a Palestinian state in 90% of the territories. “ ‘We <em>have</em> our independent state,’ Arafat protested. This would have been a major scoop! Did they sign a secret deal that they were keeping from the world? Arafat smiled in conspiratorial fashion: ‘Ask Barak’.” </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Thus, there were three significant news items contained in the interview: Arafat was evasive about why he had arrested only 17 terrorists; Arafat was lying about the death toll, falsely claiming that it was twice what it really was; and a delusional Arafat was weirdly claiming that a Palestinian state already existed.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Which of these revelations appeared in the article that Perry and his colleague Karin Laub wrote in their December 8, 2001, article for the AP? </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">None of them. Not one.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">—Arafat falsely inflating the number of fatalities. Not mentioned. </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">-- Perry and Laub did mention Barak’s offer of a Palestinian state. But instead of truthfully reporting that the delusional Arafat claimed the state already existed, they wrote: “But the Palestinians held out for more land and a ‘right of return’ for millions of refugees and their descendants.” </div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">— And as for Perry challenging Arafat for arresting only 17 terrorists, here’s what Perry and Laub wrote: “Asked whether he would be prepared to face down resistance by the militants and their growing legions of supporters, Arafat smiled and said: ‘You are speaking with Yasser Arafat. I know how to do it. I know how to do it.’”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">They simply covered up the fact that Arafat had evaded Perry’s question.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">In fact, one could say the entire article was a cover-up. Instead of reporting what Arafat actually said—the delusions, the lies, the ducking of questions about the arrests—Perry and Laub portrayed Arafat as a man of peace who was bravely fighting the terrorists: “He said he will not shy away from a confrontation with the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups to revive what hope remains for peace…He said he will continue pursuing the rest despite the continuing Israeli airstrikes…He said he was ready to return to peace talks immediately…”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">All this, despite the fact that Perry knew—as he wrote in his recent blog post—that Arafat’s claim of fighting the terrorists was wildly implausible, since there were so many of them, and he had arrested only 17 of those “key militants.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Perry concluded his blog post with this interesting reflection on Arafat’s military uniform: “Perhaps it [was] borrowed from a play about a fairytale army whose ranks contain one single, solitary man. A very senior officer, who believed that everything was real.”</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">So today, Perry reflects wistfully on the delusional Arafat. But Perry knew the truth at the time. He knew from the interview that Arafat was a deluded, conspiratorial lunatic. But Perry covered it up. It would have been very helpful to Israelis, American Jews, and everybody else to know the truth about Arafat. They could have made more informed decisions if they had that information. But for some reason, Dan Perry and the Associated Press didn’t want them to have it. I wonder why.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Open Sans";">S</span><em style="border: 0px solid rgb(224, 224, 224); box-sizing: inherit; color: black; font-family: "Open Sans";">tephen 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 Terrorism.”</em></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This column first appeared on <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/320702" target="_blank">Israel National News</a>.</div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-47776938287756704742022-01-09T09:22:00.001-05:002022-01-09T09:22:00.225-05:00Emma Watson is right!<h1 style="text-align: left;"> Emma Watson is right</h1>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #706f6f;">Hopefully,
her declaration about the Palestinians will stimulate a serious conversation
about the cruel occupation that the international community has been ignoring.</span> </h3>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">“Free
Palestine!” says actress Emma Watson.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">She’s right.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">The
territories where the Palestinian Arabs live are indeed enslaved. They deserve
to be freed from the tyrannical rule of their oppressors—Hamas and the
Palestinian Authority.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi24AFwBi2Yt7b-oGTVjYQxboka7s_ey2QpqIvwp8YTQ-oGyRcTigVPQQHKVrCYdw6gmxnLqX7swbFAp4aTvszEmzV1ofuRKum9BGXNe9qiUk_UGR-f7--UCMrXTcQDbq5XHOZhVsnyXdMuqr97g6z2jphB_Swv682iledRLHK95wDUsSnVfINKtFVEiw=s734" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="472" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi24AFwBi2Yt7b-oGTVjYQxboka7s_ey2QpqIvwp8YTQ-oGyRcTigVPQQHKVrCYdw6gmxnLqX7swbFAp4aTvszEmzV1ofuRKum9BGXNe9qiUk_UGR-f7--UCMrXTcQDbq5XHOZhVsnyXdMuqr97g6z2jphB_Swv682iledRLHK95wDUsSnVfINKtFVEiw=s320" width="206" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Emma Watson Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">The actress,
best known for her role as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” films, set
off a firestorm in the world of social media with her Instagram post showing
“Free Palestine!” banners and expressing “solidarity” with them. Hopefully, her
declaration will stimulate a serious conversation about the cruel occupation that
the international community has been ignoring.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The details
concerning Hamas and the P.A., which I cite here, are all quoted from the
latest reports by two strongly pro-Palestinian groups: Amnesty International
and Human Rights Watch. These are not “Israeli allegations.” They are what the
Palestinian Arabs’ most vocal supporters are saying about the two Arab regimes
that rule over 98 percent of the Palestinian Arabs.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">During the
past year, “the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Hamas de facto
administration in the Gaza Strip continued to crack down on dissent, including
by stifling freedoms of expression and assembly, attacking journalists and
detaining opponents,” reports Amnesty.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">Human Rights
Watch notes that the P.A. recently jailed journalist Sami al-Sai for the crime
of “administering a Facebook page that had posted information about PA
corruption.” Twenty protesters in Ramallah who dared to cry out against P.A.
corruption were likewise jailed. Hamas recently arrested seven citizens for
“participating in a video chat where they answered questions from Israeli
civilians about life in Gaza.” And other Gazans were jailed for “weakening the
revolutionary spirit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Hamas also
frequently executes citizens after “trials” that are “marred with due process
violations,” reports Human Rights Watch.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">How do the
P.A. and Hamas regimes treat those whom it arrests? “Palestinian security
forces in the West Bank and Gaza routinely used torture and other ill-treatment
with impunity. … Security forces in both areas used unnecessary and/or
excessive force during law enforcement activities.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">What about
women’s rights in Occupied Palestine? Amnesty: “Women and girls faced
discrimination in law and practice and were inadequately protected against
sexual and other gender-based violence, including so-called honour killings.”
Last year alone, “nineteen women died in the West Bank and 18 in Gaza as a
result of gender-based violence.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">Human Rights
Watch points out that the P.A. “has no comprehensive domestic violence law.”
Keep in mind that the P.A. has been ruling for 27 years. Nearly three decades
in power and still no comprehensive domestic violence law.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">With regard
to gay rights, Amnesty reports: “Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex people continued to face discrimination and lacked protection” at the
hands of Hamas and the P.A. In Gaza, section 152 of the penal code
“criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity and makes it punishable by up
to 10 years’ imprisonment.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">Citing local
Palestinian Arab human-rights activists, Amnesty says that in the past year,
there were numerous “violations of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly
and freedom of the press,” as well as “158 cases in the West Bank and 118 in
Gaza of the arbitrary arrests of opponents and critics.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">Amnesty says
that last year, the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms
“recorded 97 incidents of attacks against journalists, including arbitrary arrests,
ill-treatment during interrogation, confiscation of equipment, physical
assaults and bans on reporting: 36 in the West Bank and 61 in Gaza.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">As for
elections, the P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas is now in the 17th year of his four
year-term and has repeatedly postponed parliamentary elections. In Gaza, too,
democracy is a dirty word.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">I realize
that Emma Watson is an actress, not an expert on Middle East affairs. And in
posting about “Palestine,” she might have just been going along with what she
thinks all the cool young celebrities are doing.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: #575756;">But perhaps
the international uproar that she has provoked will inspire her to take a
closer look at the implications of what she posted on Instagram. Because in
raising the issue of freeing the Palestinian Arabs from their real occupiers,
she’s actually on to something.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #575756; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; padding: 0in;">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.”</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-44254774310566671572021-12-08T05:35:00.001-05:002021-12-08T05:35:36.716-05:00Once Again, Qatar Saves Hamas<p> </p><h1 style="background: white; line-height: 18pt; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Montserrat;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Once Again, Qatar Saves Hamas</span></span></b></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 13.5pt; mso-outline-level: 4; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; font-size: 12pt; padding: 0in;">by Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org</span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The government of Qatar has again rescued Hamas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every
time the Hamas terror regime in Gaza is on the brink of collapse, the Gulf
state of Qatar comes riding in on a white horse like a knight in shining armor
to ensure that Hamas will live to see another day. What happened to the
“moderate” Qatar that American Jewish leaders were praising just a few years
ago?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1x-REhKjTtB5Qoe3NkGTubZIY0BA4mePT0Qo6o7pN2qsSKEjKP7AdcvfH2CG21ZBB8r4rSfUazMmjjZOPypB29wjf9EWXwYbJFxvyCgVi1sX_kIvG6pnCY6_JeRP28flxYn4GbJMGnu7/s170/Gaza+Cash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="85" data-original-width="170" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw1x-REhKjTtB5Qoe3NkGTubZIY0BA4mePT0Qo6o7pN2qsSKEjKP7AdcvfH2CG21ZBB8r4rSfUazMmjjZOPypB29wjf9EWXwYbJFxvyCgVi1sX_kIvG6pnCY6_JeRP28flxYn4GbJMGnu7/w320-h160/Gaza+Cash.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table>This
time, Hamas allegedly is running out of money to pay the salaries of its
employees. If you don’t pay your employees, they don’t work. And if your
workers don’t work, your gangster regime collapses. The collapse of Hamas would
obviously be a good thing for Israel, the United States and modern civilization
in general.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But
once again, Qatar has jumped in on the side of the bad guys.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
new deal, according to media reports, will involve Qatar sending fuel to Gaza
through Egypt. Hamas is then going to sell the fuel in order to meet
its payroll.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That
will keep Hamas in power so that it can continue firing thousands of
missiles at Israeli kindergartens and kibbutzim near the Gaza border. And it
can keep its cells in Judea and Samaria operating, so they can murder Jews
there, too.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Qatar is already
underwriting Gaza’s power plant and sending financial aid to 100,000 Gazans
every month through a UN voucher system, which saves Hamas the expense of
having to provide that aid. And it offered Hamas $500 million to <a href="https://www.jns.org/qatar-offers-hamas-ruled-gaza-500-million-to-rebuild/"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #4bb6f5; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">rebuild</span></a> after the 11-day
conflict with Israeli in May—a conflict started by the terrorist organization
and one that ended with the launching of more than 4,000 rockets at civilian
populations in Israel. In short, Qatar is pretty much propping up the entire
Hamas mini-terror state.</span><span style="font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Hamas is not the only
terror gang supported by Qatar. Its <a href="https://www.jns.org/new-qatari-school-textbooks-glorify-hamas-reject-peace-between-israel-and-arab-states/"><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: #4bb6f5; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">close relationships</span></a> with the
Taliban and the Muslim Brotherhood have been well-documented. And a lawsuit now
making its way through British courts charges that Qatar has sent hundreds of
millions of dollars to the Al-Nusra Front, a Syrian-based affiliate of
Al-Qaeda.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "PT Serif", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">And
for those who are concerned about the rise of antisemitism around the world,
it’s worth recalling that a report by the Anti-Defamation League found the
official Qatari government media continues to publish editorial cartoons “which
blatantly demonize Jews” and “draw on the worst kind of antisemitic themes.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In
addition, a review by MEMRI of textbooks prepared by Qatar’s Ministry of
Education and used in its schools found that they “feature antisemitic motifs,
presenting Jews as treacherous, dishonest and crafty, and at the same time as
weak, wretched and cowardly.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Moreover,
the last international book fair in Qatar’s capital, Doha, featured antisemitic
books such as “The Myth of the Nazi Gas Chambers” and “Lies Spread by the
Jews,” and an Arabic translation of “Awakening to Jewish Influence in the
United States of America” by white-supremacist leader (and former
Ku Klux Klansman) David Duke.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is all quite different from what we were told by the handful of leaders of
American Zionist organizations who took all-expenses-paid trips to meet with
the Emir of Qatar in his oil-rich Gulf kingdom in 2017-18. One Jewish official
later admitted publicly that he was a paid, registered foreign agent of the
Qatari government.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
the secret trips were exposed by journalists, the Jewish leaders defended their
actions on the grounds that Qatar was becoming more moderate.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I don’t see anything
“moderate” about Qatar hosting and sponsoring the world’s largest antisemitic
media network, <i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">Al Jazeera</span></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar financing terrorist groups around the
world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
I don’t see anything “moderate” about Qatar rescuing and sponsoring a deadly
terrorist regime along Israel’s southern border.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; margin-bottom: 7.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s
time to take off the blinders and see Qatar for what it really is—a
terror-funding outlet for antisemitic vitriol.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 21.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; padding: 0in;">Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney, 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.”</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "PT Serif",serif; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-58833772188606943652021-11-22T10:05:00.005-05:002021-11-22T10:05:57.356-05:00A terrorist shatters all the stereotypes about terrorists<p> </p><div id="divTtl"><h1 itemprop="name" style="letter-spacing: -0.9px; line-height: 35.4133px; margin: 26px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">A terrorist shatters all the stereotypes about terrorists</span></h1><h2 class="Desc" itemprop="description" style="font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: -0.5px; line-height: 19.2667px; margin: 6px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 6px; position: relative;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">Before this latest horrible attack and the name of its dead victim—Eliyahu Kay, a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa —fade from the news, let us at least learn one important lesson.</span></h2><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br />At first, it might seem as though Sunday’s attack in Jerusalem’s Old City was just another typical act of Palestinian Arab terrorism—an attacker with a submachine gun opened fire on a street not far from the Western Wall, murdering one Jewish passerby and wounding four others. We’ve heard that kind of horrible news a thousand times before. I’ve lived it.</span></div><div class="Content" id="ItemContent" itemprop="articleBody" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 1.25em;"><p></p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikTX-8Bc6rygtE2AIOEuNEdPeRQV8GlU-E5eSAENGftZ-Sjz_huaX6EglI6tKtJLc7l4hChkjtX0V-D7XFflisbJQAys2gpBJ-JiwYl_6D1xsWgJrRV2HCufYgVSzwEwXkeW-NV_0kkSl9/s275/Eliyahu+Kay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikTX-8Bc6rygtE2AIOEuNEdPeRQV8GlU-E5eSAENGftZ-Sjz_huaX6EglI6tKtJLc7l4hChkjtX0V-D7XFflisbJQAys2gpBJ-JiwYl_6D1xsWgJrRV2HCufYgVSzwEwXkeW-NV_0kkSl9/w275-h183/Eliyahu+Kay.jpg" width="275" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chabad.org</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But when you look closely, it turns out that there is a lot to learn from this “typical” episode, because everything about it contradicts what the “experts” are always telling us about Arab terrorists and the evil deeds that they perpetrate.</span></p><p></p><p>The self-appointed experts say the “profile” of an Arab terrorist is an unemployed, single young man. But Sunday’s killer, Fadi Abu Shkhaydem, was none of those things.</p><p></p><div style="cursor: pointer;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The sociologists and think tank fellows who claim to know everything tell us that terrorists strike because “they have nothing to lose.” They supposedly have “personal problems” or “financial hardships.” They don’t have to worry about leaving behind widows or orphans. Well, this terrorist had everything to lose—but that didn’t stop him.</span></div><p></p><p>Shkhaydem was 42, not 22. He wasn’t an unstable, misguided youngster. He was a family man. He had a wife. He had five children. He simply didn’t care about making his wife a widow or leaving his children without a father. Murdering Jews was more important to him than the lives of his own loved ones.</p><p></p><p>In addition to the submachine gun, Shkhaydem was carrying a knife. Presumably, he wanted to be able to kill more Jews after his ammunition ran out.</p><p></p><p>Shkhaydem and his family lived in the northeastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat. Classified as a “refugee camp,” Shuafat is adjacent to two Jewish neighborhoods, Pisgat Ze’ev and French Hill. Its residents take the same light rail line as the residents of those cities. In other words, the Shkhaydems had plenty of opportunities for peaceful interaction with Israeli Jews.</p><p></p><p>The international news media often tell us that terrorists are merely “responding” to some “expansion” by Jewish settlers. They can’t trot out that excuse in this case. The Shkhaydems were living in Jerusalem. They were not being harmed in any way by Jewish “settlers.” Nobody was taking their land or threatening their livelihood.</p><p></p><p>The Shkhaydems hold Israeli identity cards and have the status of permanent residents of Jerusalem. They enjoy the same rights as Jewish Jerusalemites, including medical care and voting in municipal elections. (The only thing they can’t do is vote in general elections, since they are not Israeli citizens.) Nobody is oppressing them.</p><p></p><p>Shkhaydem was not some uneducated street thug. He has been described in news reports as “an Islamic scholar.” He was a well-known preacher in Jerusalem mosques, including the al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount. He was a teacher at the Rashidiya Secondary School, in Jerusalem which is in the municipial school system, but teaches the PA curriculum. He was “working on his PhD,” according to Shibli Sweiti, the terrorist’s uncle.</p><p></p><p>The schools in the Shkhaydems’ Shuafat neighborhood are run by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA. That’s a concession that the Israeli authorities have made, in the hope of fostering a peaceful atmosphere. That hasn’t worked out too well. UNRWA schools are notorious for using curricula that defame Jews and glorify terrorism. No doubt Fadi Abu Shkhaydem was pleased that his children are being educated there.</p><p></p><p>According to Israeli news reports, Shkhaydem’s friends and colleagues praised him as a “Mourabit,” or “defender of the faith” because of his frequent participation in rallies to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and to evict Jews from the <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/tags/Sheikh_Jarrah" style="color: #046eb9; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Shimon HaTzadik / Sheikh Jarrah</a> neighborhoods.</p><p></p><p>There’s a similar logic at work in those protests and in this week’s terrorist attack. One day, Shkhaydem is shouting about the need to keep Jews off the Temple Mount and out of the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood; the next day, he picks up a machine gun to try to put that message into practice, in blood. Jewish blood.</p><p></p><p>I wonder what <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/tags/J_Street" style="color: #046eb9; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">J Street</a>, B’Tselem, Americans for Peace Now, and all the others who have been demanding the expulsion of Jews from Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah will have to say about Shkhaydem putting their slogans into practice.</p><p></p><p>So far they haven’t said anything. They’re obviously hoping that the whole episode will quickly retreat from the headlines before anybody starts asking them any embarrassing questions.</p><p></p><p>But before this latest horrible attack is forgotten, and the name of its dead victim—<a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317318" style="color: #046eb9; cursor: pointer; font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Eliyahu Kay,</a> a 26-year-old immigrant from South Africa —fades from the news, let us at least learn this one important lesson:</p><p></p><p>The main cause of terrorism is ideology, not poverty. That may be hard for some Americans to comprehend because it’s so different from our own experience. Most Americans are not ideological. American culture doesn’t accept political violence. The American government doesn’t promote the use of violence. And the religions that most Americans embrace do not espouse violence.</p><p></p><p>But, as everyone knows, the Middle East is not the Middle West.</p><p>Stephen M. Flatow</p><p>This column first appeared at <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317340" target="_blank">https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/317340</a></p></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-89176141706333202072021-11-16T03:58:00.000-05:002021-11-16T03:58:08.671-05:00Stop taking pictures of terrorists! <h1 style="text-align: left;"> Stop taking pictures of terrorists!</h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent
cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? Can you guess?<br /><o:p> </o:p></h2><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My recent column on <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316998" target="_blank">Israel National News</a>. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Israel’s critics have a new rallying cry: Stop taking
pictures of terrorists! They don’t word it quite that way, of course. They wrap
it in slogans about “big tech” and “privacy rights.” But at the end of the day,
the message is the same—they don’t want Israel to keep track of Arab terrorists
and their supporters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Washington Post and the New York Times delivered this
message with a journalistic one-two punch on November 9, each publishing a
major feature story about how Israel is intrusive, sneaky and underhanded.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFOTmav48dp3cBgpngT8zZJCadJCk65n3faVGvYkDz9IsN2GMlvyt3zPe2G4PnDsXknDO0aPdm5o1HWSalUy0S7HPHn8cttGC9KwkFxzK32dtpwdnvUzWIb57KhM8XuQ6B65D5zDI8OtC/s667/Cameras.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="667" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYFOTmav48dp3cBgpngT8zZJCadJCk65n3faVGvYkDz9IsN2GMlvyt3zPe2G4PnDsXknDO0aPdm5o1HWSalUy0S7HPHn8cttGC9KwkFxzK32dtpwdnvUzWIb57KhM8XuQ6B65D5zDI8OtC/w320-h190/Cameras.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Security Cameras iStock</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;">The Post headlined its front page story “Israel Targets
Palestinians with Cameras, Facial Tracking.” The word “target” was obviously
intended to conjure up images of violence. They want readers to think of
Israelis as sharpshooters with their rifles aimed at the backs of innocent
Arabs.</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Why exactly are the barbaric Israelis, with their violent
cameras, taking so many pictures of Arabs? It takes a patient and discerning
reader of the Post to figure that out. One has to fist wade through paragraph
after paragraph that Post correspondent Elizabeth Dwoskin has loaded with ominous
terms like “secrecy,” “broad surveillance,” and “invasion of privacy.” The
reader is thoroughly confused and frightened before he or she can even figure
out why the Israelis are doing what they are accused of doing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>What the Israelis are doing is secretly taking photographs
of potential terrorists. Good! I’m delighted that they are using modern
technology to engage in surveillance that will preempt massacres.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Terrorists do not deserve privacy.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>I’m delighted that they are using modern technology to engage
in surveillance that will preempt massacres.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Elizabeth Dwoskin and the Washington Post evidently want
Israel to feel guilty and stop taking the pictures. But Israel has nothing to
feel guilty about. When the Palestinian Arabs stop trying to burn and stone
Jews to death nearly every single day, the Israelis won’t need to take pictures
of the would-be murderers.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Over at the New York Times, that same day, a headline read,
“Palestinians Targeted by Israeli Firm’s Spyware, Experts Say.” There’s that
“target” word again, helping to create the impression that terrorists and
aspiring terrorists are the victims.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Times actually managed to be even more slippery than the
Post, because the Times article was not about the State of Israel or the
government of Israel, but rather a private Israeli software company. How can
you blame all of Israel for one company’s transactions? By portraying the
Israeli government as a “backer” of the company, because the government has
issued licenses and used some of the products.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The product that seems to worry the Times the most is
software that can access private telephones. The Israeli authorities used it to
get into the phones of Palestinian Arab groups that it recently outlawed for
supporting the terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
(PFLP).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Well, once again, I say: Good! That’s how Israel finds out
which Arabs are legitimate political activists, and which of them are funneling
their European grants to PFLP terrorists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Israelis had two choices regarding the six groups that
it outlawed for helping the PFLP. Their first choice was to put privacy rights
above the right to life. In other words, allow the groups to keep giving money
to the PFLP, let the PFLP use the funds to buy guns and axes, and then mourn
when PFLP terrorists make use of the guns and axes—like when PFLP members shot
and hacked to death those four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Israelis’ second choice was to preempt such slaughter by
outlawing the six groups and thus disrupting the flow of funds to the killers.
I’m glad the Israelis chose that option.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The story won’t end soon, however, because we all know how
this little game works. First, the articles are published. Next, groups like J
Street and Americans for Peace Now will declare how concerned they are by the
“chilling effect” of Israel’s latest misbehavior. That will be followed by an
“investigation” by some United Nations panel or “human rights” organization.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In a few months, the investigators will release a “report”
confirming what the accusers claimed before there was any investigation. J
Street will then announce that the report “deserves serious consideration.” The
Washington Post and the New York Times will publish articles about the report,
quoting some Jewish former State Department official expressing grave concern.
And so it will go, until the next inevitable round.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Fortunately, the Israelis will ignore all this chatter. They
have to ignore it because they have no choice—their lives are on the line. For
Diaspora Jewish complainers, it’s all just an amusing intellectual exercise.
For Israelis—of all political persuasions—it’s a matter of life and death.
Literally.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>So American newspapers and UN panels and Diaspora Jewish
whiners can complain all they want. At the end of the day, Israel is just not
going to commit national suicide.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><i>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 author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against
Iranian Terror.”</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<br />Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-61985512316795833502021-11-07T01:51:00.000-05:002021-11-07T01:51:29.169-05:00Sweden rethinking aid to Palestinian Authority; what about U.S.?<h1 style="text-align: left;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Sweden rethinking aid to Palestinian Authority; what about
U.S.?</span></h1><div><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Terrorism, authoritarianism, and corruption are not American
values. They are those of the PA, a regime that deserves no US support. </span></h2><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">My Israel National News column may be read on-line <a href="http://ch7.io/cbndp" target="_blank">here.</a></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;">Stephen M. Flatow, October 24 , 2021<br /> <o:p> <br /></o:p>Last week, the United States took a step closer to giving
the Palestinian Arabs $225-million, regardless of Palestinian behavior. Also
last week, Sweden said it will not go forward with its aid to the Palestinian
Authority if Palestinian corruption continues.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>How can this be?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>In Washington, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved
language giving the Palestinian Arabs $225-million, which is $40-million more
than the Biden administration requested at this stage. The committee’s action
follows an identical step by the House of Representatives.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>You may wonder how such aid can forward, when the Taylor
Force Act of 2018 prohibits U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until the PA
stops paying salaries and rewards to imprisoned terrorists and the families of
dead terrorists.<br /><o:p> </o:p><o:p> <br /></o:p>American Jewish organizations need to speak out against the
proposed $225-million U.S. aid package to the Palestinian Arabs.<br />The answer is simple—they will elude the law by routing the
funds through non-governmental agencies. But that’s just sleight-of-hand. Make
no mistake about it: this is American money for the PA in another form. Aid is
fungible. That $225-million will mean the PA has to spend $225-million less of
its own money.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>U.S. Senator Christopher Coons said the U.S. aid “reflects
America’s core values.” I beg to differ. Terrorism, authoritarianism, and
corruption are not American values. They are the values of the Palestinian
Authority, a regime that deserves no American support.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Sweden, by contrast, seems to be having second thoughts
about the $49-million that it gave to the Palestinian Arabs last year. During
her visit to Israel last week, Swedish foreign minister Ann Linde indicated
that Sweden may be rethinking whether to continue that aid. She said that
“corruption at such a level as exists in Palestine” has to end “if we are to be
able to fully support” the PA.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Let it be noted that Sweden is far from Israel’s best friend
in Europe. The Swedes have passionately supported forcing Israel back to the
indefensible 1967 lines and creating a deadly Palestinian state in Israel’s
back yard. Sweden also still pretends that Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, is Israel’s
capital.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>But apparently the Swedes are concerned about how their money
is spent. I wonder why some of America’s leaders do not seem to have that same
level of concern. I don’t see any statements from Sen. Coons or his colleagues
saying that U.S. aid to the Palestinian Arabs should be conditioned on ending
corruption.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Another interesting contrast: the Biden administration is
withholding $130-military aid from Egypt because of human rights violations
there. Yet the administration and its congressional allies apparently have no
problem with the PA’s torture of dissidents, suppression of media critics, or
mistreatment of women. Don’t Palestinian human rights matter?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Three years ago, two other European countries that are not
particularly known as lovers of Israel likewise offered a model for the United
States to follow.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Belgium, which had been giving the Palestinian Arabs more
than $20-million annually, announced that it “will put on hold any projects
related to the construction or equipment of Palestinian schools.” That was
because Palestinian Media Watch exposed that a Belgian-funded Palestinian
school, the Beit Awwa Basic Girls School, changed its name to the Dalal
Mughrabi Elementary School.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Mughrabi was the leader of the Fatah terrorist gang that
landed on Israel’s shore on March 9, 1978. They murdered an American Jewish nature
photographer, Gail Rubin (the niece of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff), then
hijacked an Israeli bus and massacred 36 passengers, including 12 children. One
of Mughrabi’s accomplices was later hired as a senior adviser to PA chairman
Mahmoud Abbas.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>Norway decided that it, too, does not want to be associated
with Mughrabi. The Norwegians had contributed $10,000 to a women’s center in
the PA town of Burqa. The PA named the center after mass-murderer Mughrabi. The
Norwegian government demanded, and received, a full refund.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>If these three European countries can stand up for the
principle of opposing the glorification of Palestinian terrorism, shouldn’t the
United States be able to do likewise?<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p>American Jewish organizations need to speak out against the
proposed $225-million U.S. aid package to the Palestinian Arabs. Our tax
dollars should not be sent—either directly or indirectly—to corrupt,
terror-promoting regimes. Belgium, Norway, and now Sweden, are setting an
example that the Biden administration should follow.<br /><o:p> <br /></o:p><i>Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney, 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 Terror.”</i></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-83285509231452104502021-11-07T01:03:00.001-05:002022-01-20T06:38:21.929-05:00Israel’s critics have a new slogan<h1 style="text-align: left;">Israel’s critics have a new slogan</h1><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">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. </span></h2><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: HE; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">View on line at <a href="http://ch7.io/cbm5g" target="_blank">Israel National News</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Stephen M. Flatow October 12 , 2021</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">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.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_-KCt7g09lXVWNswcjRnTd1Lrtb-B3sZPjAK8kut_VbDx4EEIxaR43cWJ7ksQ3MXBwlUVtKHoQaUXD841irt-Bd0Soj-GpQAbOziAGaX3HQP4IpmOS464lobmVSeKhl17bi2uPBdTK4l7OwZCFQZA2V2Mcps54TwuPn857aNKUZ7KbqDc7AC53NtqCQ=s255" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="198" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_-KCt7g09lXVWNswcjRnTd1Lrtb-B3sZPjAK8kut_VbDx4EEIxaR43cWJ7ksQ3MXBwlUVtKHoQaUXD841irt-Bd0Soj-GpQAbOziAGaX3HQP4IpmOS464lobmVSeKhl17bi2uPBdTK4l7OwZCFQZA2V2Mcps54TwuPn857aNKUZ7KbqDc7AC53NtqCQ=w155-h200" width="155" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Naftali Bennett (Wikimedia Commons</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> T</o:p>he 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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>If leftwing groups were honest and called this “solution” by
its real name, “the nine-miles-wide solution,” nobody would support it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">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.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p><i>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.”</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-6453071616150853352021-11-07T01:47:00.006-04:002021-11-07T01:49:06.859-04:00They tried to burn Jews alive. Again.<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><h1 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They tried to burn Jews alive. Again.</span></h1><p>My Israel National News column posted on October 1, 2021.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">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.</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQLiJyUJ5atRQ2T2GYHBqfij6p1lTq_YIUN37W5KTDgsr175QQ4CTd8yxfft-moK_-1UUlpUzEFG2Y4TwW9YQ2OZ3YW77vKiAH9v8Ml34j8PgL615c1rYMI_YGyQAl1y3qIF-bl4GSWIH/s667/Joseph%2527s+Tomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="667" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQLiJyUJ5atRQ2T2GYHBqfij6p1lTq_YIUN37W5KTDgsr175QQ4CTd8yxfft-moK_-1UUlpUzEFG2Y4TwW9YQ2OZ3YW77vKiAH9v8Ml34j8PgL615c1rYMI_YGyQAl1y3qIF-bl4GSWIH/s320/Joseph%2527s+Tomb.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joseph's Tomb (Flash 90)</td></tr></tbody></table>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.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">You know what the international response would have been if
the victims had thrown those firebombs right back at their attackers.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">But there was no way to blame the Jews. So, the world looked
away.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">“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.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">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?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This column may be viewed on line <a href="http://ch7.io/cbmUE " target="_blank">here.</a></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Stephen M. Flatow, October 01, 2021<o:p></o:p></p><p> </p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-75101863223657638272021-09-27T09:38:00.004-04:002021-09-27T09:38:00.198-04:00Peace Now attacks the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations<h1 style="text-align: left;"> <b>Peace Now attacks the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations</b></h1>
<h4 style="text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-font-kerning: 18.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b>The
American group is calling large parts of Jerusalem illegally occupied
territory—and going after the Conference for not doing likewise. So much for Lyndon Johnson’s belief it’s
better to have someone inside the tent pissing outside, than someone on the outside
pissing in.</h4>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 19.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span><b><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">(September
24, 2021 / JNS)</span></b> It’s the ultimate case of biting
the hand that feeds you.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Americans
for Peace Now (APN) has launched a public assault on the Conference of
Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations—the very organization that
risked its good name and credibility by welcoming Peace Now into its ranks,
despite plenty of reason to turn them away.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">And just
to make this whole episode even uglier and more ironic, the attack by APN on
the Presidents Conference is over the issue of Jerusalem—the very issue that
nearly torpedoed APN’s admission to the conference back in 1993.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUIrNYWbThubsESD9134I6CwG_aWEQw8Ncx-u9ZSWaUGf0WABBvV5E68SPYzAs7uThQ3Uko2qVa1FRn1hiVr7LRO7UiRLB1rri47r2Pc2Q8tsEtmaJkTmXrbr_MXG6J-ICWneU46vd9iE/s251/Ben+and+jerrys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="201" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUIrNYWbThubsESD9134I6CwG_aWEQw8Ncx-u9ZSWaUGf0WABBvV5E68SPYzAs7uThQ3Uko2qVa1FRn1hiVr7LRO7UiRLB1rri47r2Pc2Q8tsEtmaJkTmXrbr_MXG6J-ICWneU46vd9iE/s0/Ben+and+jerrys.jpg" width="201" /></a></div>The new
controversy started innocently enough. The Presidents Conference last week
issued a routine press release applauding the <a href="https://www.conferenceofpresidents.org/news/press/2021/sep10/conference-presidents-applauds-arizonas-divestment-unilever" target="_blank"><span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; color: black; padding: 0in; text-decoration-line: none;">decision</span></a> by the State of Arizona to divest from the
British Unilever company. Unilever owns Ben & Jerry’s, the ice-cream
manufacturer that is boycotting numerous Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, as
well as communities in Judea and Samaria.<p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span>There was
nothing unusual or improper about the Presidents Conference release; it’s
simple good manners to thank your allies for their efforts. The people of
Arizona and the state authorities need to know that the American Jewish
community appreciates their stance against the boycott of Jerusalem.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">But that
was too much for Peace Now, which issued a sarcastic public attack on the
Conference of Presidents for daring to laud Arizona. The APN press release
accuses the Conference leadership of hypocrisy for—get this—opposing those who
divest from Israel but supporting those who divest from Unilever.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">That’s
“hypocrisy”? That would be like saying that since Jews boycotted products from
Nazi Germany in the 1930s, they had no right to complain when anti-Semites
boycotted Jews.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Apparently,
the folks at APN don’t realize that the problem is not the concept of divesting
or the concept of boycotting. The problem is the difference between right and
wrong. Divesting from Israel is morally wrong. Boycotting enemies of Israel is
morally right, just as boycotting Nazi Germany in the 1930s was morally right.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">What makes
the APN attack on the Presidents Conference even more galling is its entire
premise. APN claims that the Ben & Jerry’s boycott is legitimate (and
therefore should not be protested) because it is boycotting “communities that
are illegal under international law.”</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Experts on
international law are divided on whether Jewish communities in Judea and
Samaria are legal or illegal. But the key point here is that those who say
they’re illegal also say that many of the Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem are
illegal.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The basis
for calling those Jewish communities illegal is that they are in territories
that Israel won in the 1967 Six-Day War. Well, Israel won large sections of Jerusalem
in that war, too. So what APN is saying is that the following neighborhoods and
sites are illegally “occupied” by Israel and therefore should be boycotted,
according to international law:</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The Temple
Mount. The Western Wall. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City. The Mount of
Olives cemetery, which is the oldest Jewish cemetery in the world. Ramot.
French Hill. Gilo. Ramat Shlomo. And the mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhoods of
Shimon HaTzadik (Sheikh Jarrah) and Kfar Shiloah.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">For APN to
call those Jerusalem neighborhoods “occupied territory” and therefore support
the boycott of them is a flagrant violation of an explicit promise that APN
made in order gain admission to the Conference of Presidents.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">During the
debate over APN’s application, back in 1993, pro-Israel activists warned that
APN could not be trusted to uphold the Conference’s consensus position that all
of Jerusalem belongs to Israel and should remain Israel’s undivided capital.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The
activists had good reason to worry. A number of statements and actions by APN
or its parent body, the Peace Now movement in Israel, had raised serious
questions about the organization’s commitment to Jerusalem.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Just
moments before the members of the Conference of Presidents cast their votes on
the APN application, the APN leadership sent a telegram that was read aloud at
the meeting, pledging to adhere to the Conference position on Jerusalem.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">The
Conference’s member organizations decided to take a chance. They gambled that
APN would be true to its word and be part of the consensus on Jerusalem—sort of
like Lyndon Johnson’s belief that it was better to have some people inside the
tent than outside the tent. They put the Conference’s good name and credibility
on the line.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Their
gamble did not pay off.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">Within two
years, APN was violating its pledge. In 1995, APN leaders met with a senior PLO
official in Jerusalem. As a result, the Conference of Presidents leadership
sent a letter to APN, reprimanding it.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">That
1995 meeting was bad enough, but the latest violation is much worse. Now,
APN is in effect calling large parts of Jerusalem illegally occupied
territory—and attacking the Conference for not doing likewise. It’s time for
the Presidents Conference to reconsider whether APN should be allowed to
continue as one of its member organizations.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 22.5pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;">APN has
broken its pledge to the Conference of Presidents on Jerusalem. There have to
be consequences for such outrageous behavior.</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="border: none windowtext 1.0pt; color: black; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-border-alt: none windowtext 0in; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi; padding: 0in;">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 resides in Jerusalem
and is the author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian
Terror.”</span></i><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-bidi;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-11945522833168284482021-09-14T09:00:00.001-04:002021-09-14T09:00:00.177-04:00There's no such thing as a Palestinian terrorist<h1 style="text-align: left;"> There's no such thing as a Palestinian terrorist</h1><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">Readers of the NYTimes and Wash Post, note: The 6 escaped
prisoners called "militants" by your media murdered innocent
civilians.</h3><div>My latest column at <a href="https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/313309" target="_blank">Israel National News</a></div><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">Which of the following actions by
"ideologically-motivated" Palestinian Arabs should be considered
terrorism?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>(A) Placing a bomb at a bus stop in downtown Tel Aviv,
killing an Israeli teenage girl.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>(B) Kidnapping an Israeli teenage boy and shooting him
point-blank in the head.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>(C) Throwing flaming bottles of gasoline at Israelis, in
order to burn them alive.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>(D) Firing automatic weapons at Israeli civilian buses.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The answer, according to the New York Times and the
Washington Post, is “(E) None of the above.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSMGZ03h_DcShNB3Uv5ehXV45FXl45h5uoL7DWNjeaLsI-otJG_D6aDc_CY_35DiA88YClYoTxcYAR1irPlkFji4JiavTpmBw-E5u7EQi3s27m5FRrJhYIlWHpTDR0HGYFBrpLC4aqEtq/s667/Terrorists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="667" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSMGZ03h_DcShNB3Uv5ehXV45FXl45h5uoL7DWNjeaLsI-otJG_D6aDc_CY_35DiA88YClYoTxcYAR1irPlkFji4JiavTpmBw-E5u7EQi3s27m5FRrJhYIlWHpTDR0HGYFBrpLC4aqEtq/w320-h171/Terrorists.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fatah Terrorists<br /></td></tr></tbody></table></o:p>The terrorist attacks listed above were just a small sample
of the violent crimes against civilians committed by the six Palestinian Arabs
who recently escaped from an Israeli prison. Yet in the coverage of the escape
by America’s two most prominent and influential newspapers, the word
“terrorist” never appears.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>According to articles by the New York Times’s Jerusalem
bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley, the murderers are “prisoners,” “militants,” or
simply “the six men.” Kingsley’s computer keyboard appears to be incapable of
producing the word “terrorist” when Palestinian Arabs are involved. Maybe the
tech support folks at the Times should have a look at his laptop. Clearly
something is malfunctioning when no act of Palestinian Arab violence, no matter
how heinous, is considered terrorism.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Even when Kingsley gets around to describing the crimes they
committed, he cannot bring himself to admit that it was “terrorism.” The six
were “convicted or accused of militant activity,” he writes. No, they weren’t.
The Israeli prosecutors’ bills of indictment did not use euphemisms such as
“militant activity” to cover up the nature of the crimes, as Kingsley does.
They were indicted for terrorism and murder.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>What about the terrorist groups to which the six belong?
Kingsley of the Times re-brands them, too. Five are members of Islamic Jihad,
the terrorist gang that has murdered hundreds of Jews, including my daughter,
Alisa, in 1995. Kingsley labels them simply “a militant group.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The sixth escaped terrorist was a leader of—here’s how the
Times puts it—“the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group loosely linked to
Fatah, the secular political party that dominates Palestinian institutions in
the West Bank.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>What’s all this gobbledygook about being “loosely” linked to
Fatah? Why do Kingsley and the Times come up with these kinds of verbal
gymnastics, instead of acknowledging the indisputable fact that the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs’ Brigade is part and parcel of Fatah?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Because Fatah is chaired by Palestinian Authority leader
Mahmoud Abbas. Acknowledging that Fatah sponsors terrorism would force the
Biden administration to end all relations with the PA. So, the PA and its
sympathizers play a game in which they pretend that Fatah doesn’t really
control the Al-Aqsa terrorists.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>If you doubt that the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are really
part of Fatah, don’t take my word for it. Consider what sources that are not
friendly to Israel have to say on the subject.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The official BBC News profile of the Brigades states: “The
al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades is an armed Palestinian group associated with Yasser
Arafat's Fatah organisation.” Perhaps the BBC has no choice but to admit the
truth, because it was its own team of journalists which in November 2003
uncovered the fact that Fatah was paying $50,000 monthly to the Brigades.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>National Public Radio has described it as “Fatah’s armed
militant wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.” A Council on Foreign Relations
report on the Brigades found that they are “aligned with Fatah” and “affiliated
with former Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat’s Fatah faction.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>A June 2005 study by the U.S. government’s own Congressional
Research Service reported: “On December 18, 2003, Fatah asked the leaders of
the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to join the Fatah Council, recognizing it officially
as part of the Fatah organization.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>How about the Palestinian Authority itself? What do PA
leaders say about the Al-Aqsa gang? In June 2004, then-PA Prime Minister Ahmed
Qurei openly declared in an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat
newspaper: “We have clearly declared that the Aksa Martyrs' Brigades are part
of Fatah. We are committed to them, and Fatah bears full responsibility for the
group." (Jerusalem Post, June 20, 2004)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The New York Times’ coverage of the escaped terrorists has
been bad enough—but the way the Washington Post has handled the story has been
even worse.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Post correspondent Ellen Francis called them “prisoners” and
“fugitives”—not even “militants,” much less “terrorists.” In her reporting,
Islamic Jihad is not even “a militant group” (as the Times calls it)—it’s just
“the Islamic Jihad movement.” And Fatah is not even mentioned by Francis—it’s
merely “the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.” Readers of the Post were not given the
slightest indication as to what those two groups are all about.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Earlier this summer, a poll by the Reuters Institute for the
Study of Journalism, at Oxford, found that just 29% of Americans trust the news
media. The United States placed dead last, out of 46 countries surveyed, in
media trust.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Perhaps the blatant attempts by America’s two most
influential newspapers to cover up the nature of Palestinian Arab terrorism
might help explain why so many people distrust the media.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey and the
father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian
terrorist attack in 1995. He is an oleh chadash and the author of “A Father’s
Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”<o:p></o:p></i></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><br /></div>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-60459294922683099012021-08-30T10:37:00.004-04:002021-08-30T10:37:42.892-04:00Rescuing Biden from Afghanistan<p> <span style="background-color: white; color: #1d1d1b; font-family: "Utopia W03 Display", serif; font-size: 42px;">Rescuing Biden from Afghanistan</span></p><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #706f6f; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;">The think-tank crowd and Jewish former officials of the State Department are desperately trying to undercut the notion that the U.S. debacle demonstrates American unreliability where Israel is concerned.</span></blockquote><p> <span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">(August 30, 2021 / JNS) The obvious lesson for Israel from
America’s abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban is that it can’t count on
the U.S. to protect it from the consequences of ceding more territory.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-mcfgnSYflV1kb2mSALwbaZcU8upFWeFTGxGZQ3Dhn8F48thCA8JvKg-p3eGwYrnc9VcBB4ylwtQqCuFoF2LvZayhpq75fB_xnRfGihrQ2-2HHZplYWN1ZGSk_nsEcoNImFqMzK_TZu53/s275/Sgt+Nicole+Gee+Afghan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-mcfgnSYflV1kb2mSALwbaZcU8upFWeFTGxGZQ3Dhn8F48thCA8JvKg-p3eGwYrnc9VcBB4ylwtQqCuFoF2LvZayhpq75fB_xnRfGihrQ2-2HHZplYWN1ZGSk_nsEcoNImFqMzK_TZu53/w320-h213/Sgt+Nicole+Gee+Afghan.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Sgt. Nicole Gee, killed in Kabul</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">This reality, however, is a disaster for those who have been
banking on the idea of offering “American security guarantees” to facilitate
additional Israeli withdrawals. It explains the recent flurry of statements
from the think-tank crowd and Jewish former officials of the State Department
trying to undercut the notion that the Afghanistan mess demonstrates U.S.
unreliability.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Writing in The Hill on the eve of Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett’s arrival in Washington, ex-State Department “peace processor” David
Makovsky urged Bennett to publicly express “confidence that the U.S. is a
steadfast ally” of Israel. That, Makovsky asserted, is needed as a “rebuke to
the new narrative”—coming out of Afghanistan—“that the U.S. has given up
fighting extremism.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Meanwhile, Washington think-tanker Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen
told The New York Times: “A lot of the criticism about Afghanistan is that it’s
an abandonment of traditional U.S. allies. [Bennett’s meeting with President
Biden] was an opportunity to sit with a longstanding, steadfast ally and say
this is still a focus and we will work side by side.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Two other failed “peace processors” weighed in with
strikingly similar advice. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer told
The Forward that the events in Afghanistan “change nothing” concerning
America’s reliability and Israel. “I don’t think [Afghanistan] will impact the
[Bennett-Biden] meeting at all,” he said, claiming that “the American people
are very happy” with Biden’s actions in Afghanistan.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Kurtzer’s colleague, Aaron Miller, writing on CNN.com, urged
Bennett to “be supportive rather than demanding” with Biden, by “strengthening
the Palestinian Authority” (meaning, making more concessions to the P.A.) and
“taking steps to avoid provocation of the Palestinians in Jerusalem” (meaning,
banning Jews from living in some parts of the city).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">What these commentators have in common (aside from Makovsky
and Kurtzer-Ellenbogen oddly using the same language) is that they are all
trying to achieve the same goal: to rescue Biden’s image from the rubble of
Afghanistan, lest Israelis derive the obvious lessons from that debacle.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">And there’s a specific reason they are so anxious to do
that.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Makovsky, Kurtzer, Miller and Kurtzer-Ellenbogen all
advocate creating a Palestinian state in Israel’s back yard. That would reduce
Israel to just nine miles wide and leave its security dependent on the good
graces of the P.A. But they know that most Israelis think the statehood
proposal is too risky. So Makovsky et al think they can sugarcoat the pill by
offering American “security guarantees.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">For years, pro-Palestinian pundits and State Department
officials have been floating various versions of this scheme. They speak of
stationing American or multinational forces along Israel’s border or setting up
American-manned “early warning” posts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Occasionally, they have pushed for a U.S.-Israel
mutual-defense treaty. Perhaps they could model it on the Southeast Asia
Collective Defense Treaty that the U.S. signed with South Vietnam.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">The U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan is a disaster for
Makovsky and his colleagues, because it exposes the fragility of America’s
overseas commitments. It reminds Israelis that, in the end, no U.S. president
can “guarantee” something that one of his future successors might not uphold.
The ex-peace processors are desperate to get that Afghanistan lesson out of the
limelight as quickly as possible.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">But carefully orchestrated soundbites will not suffice to
pull the wool over the Israeli public’s eyes, because Israelis have long
memories.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">The Israelis remember how they withdrew from the Sinai after
the 1956 war in exchange for a U.S. guarantee of freedom of passage in the
Straits of Tiran. When Egypt closed the straits on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day
War, the Johnson administration suddenly couldn’t remember the promise that the
Eisenhower administration had made.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">They remember how the Nixon administration pressured Israel
to accept a premature ceasefire in the 1970 War of Attrition, in exchange for a
U.S. promise to stop Egypt from moving missiles close to the Suez Canal. But
when the Egyptians went ahead and moved their missiles forward, President Nixon
didn’t honor that promise. Israel paid a heavy price when those missiles were
deployed in the Yom Kippur War three years later.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">There have been American technicians stationed in the Sinai
Desert since 1975. That was how former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger got
the Israelis to give up strategically vital mountain passes and oil fields
there. In fact, ex-Ambassador Martin Indyk—Makovsky was his right-hand man—has
just written a book glorifying that Kissinger mission.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Indyk obviously sees the involvement of Americans on the
ground as a useful way to get Israelis to take extreme risks, then and now.
It’s important to keep in mind, however, that those Americans in the Sinai have
never been tested. You can bet they would be on the first plane out if a new
Egyptian regime sent its tanks into the Sinai.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><span style="font-size: medium; font-weight: normal;">Afghanistan is another vivid, tragic illustration of the
fact that, in the end, Israel is on its own. And Israelis can see that with
their own eyes in the scenes of desperate Afghans clinging to the wheels of
American planes departing from Kabul. That’s an image that’s hard to erase.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></o:p><i><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;">Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney in New Jersey 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.”</span></i></p></h3><p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3561063057849690721.post-68848905893639499192021-08-24T10:00:00.001-04:002021-08-24T10:00:00.209-04:00Joe Biden supports the "Occupation"<p> </p><h1 style="text-align: left;">Biden supports the "occupation"</h1>
<p class="MsoNormal">By Stephen M. Flatow, Israel National News</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Biden administration has announced that
it supports “The Occupation.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>No, not that “occupation,” it’s the
British-American occupation of territory which belongs to the nation of Mauritius.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Yes, the same Biden administration that
opposes Israel’s “occupation” of Judea-Samaria and that demands creation of a
Palestinian Arab state there, has now publicly declared its support for the
colonialist, imperialist, and possibly racist occupation by Britain of islands
belonging to the Indian Ocean country of Mauritius.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kYkqoomCkQ20HS0o2i4bKhfmCxCTWgNNjdPq7HcS8yjb5Jbxs_XGh2DcgufwG0VvyeLRBPbbPtIDyxGehVRReFbtcJ-ik_VbIF-ttmM54ZgSI9syx2rhpHo79jUZ0NNIfiMq5a3Wk0ac/s1768/Chagos_map.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1768" data-original-width="1581" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kYkqoomCkQ20HS0o2i4bKhfmCxCTWgNNjdPq7HcS8yjb5Jbxs_XGh2DcgufwG0VvyeLRBPbbPtIDyxGehVRReFbtcJ-ik_VbIF-ttmM54ZgSI9syx2rhpHo79jUZ0NNIfiMq5a3Wk0ac/w179-h200/Chagos_map.png" width="179" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Chagos Archipelago</span></td></tr></tbody></table> </o:p>It’s an occupation in which the United States
is complicit because the British allow the U.S. to maintain a military base
there. So, since the U.S. benefits from this particular occupation, suddenly
all those high-sounding principles that our State Department regularly hurls as
accusations against Israel— “self-determination,” “illegal occupation” and all
the rest—are out the window. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>And guess who’s going along with this British-American
Occupation? That’s right—all the folks who rail about “colonialism,”
“imperialism,” “racism” and “occupation” when it comes to Israel. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Bernie Sanders. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. J
Street. Ben & Jerry’s. Not a word from any of them about The
Occupation—that is, when a Democratic administration is the party to blame.
They’re only interested when they can blame Israel.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The name “Mauritius” is familiar to those who
know the history of England’s attempts to keep Jews out of the Land of Israel.
In 1940, some 1,600 Jews whom the British caught trying to enter the ancient
Jewish homeland were deported to Mauritius, which is 1,200 miles off the
southeastern coast of Africa.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Mauritius was just one of the many small
countries around the world that British colonialists illegally occupied and
exploited for centuries. The British authorities chose that remote island for
the Jewish deportees in the hope that the world would forget about them. The
fact that Mauritius is so remote has no doubt contributed to the ability of the
current British and American governments to keep their ongoing Occupation out
of sight. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>But no longer. A series of recent diplomatic
exchanges and little-publicized United Nations actions has shed light on the
whole sordid story of the Occupied Mauritian Territory and its hypocritical
enablers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">French racist colonialists invaded and
occupied Mauritius in 1715. British racist imperialists conquered it in 1810.
The newly acquired territory included a series of islands called the Chagos
Archipelago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In 1966, the British allowed the United
States to build a military base there. But the world was changing, the British
empire was crumbling, and in 1968 London granted Mauritius its independence.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>But the Brits kept the Chagos Archipelago. Not
that they ever asked the indigenous inhabitants what they wanted.
“Self-determination” is only for Palestinian Arabs. The black and brown
residents of the Chagos Archipelago were not only ignored, but persecuted.
Between 1968 and 1973, the British violently expelled all 1,500 of the native
Chagossians. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>According to documents revealed in a lawsuit
by one of those deportees, the U.S. and the United Kingdom agreed at the time
that it would be “awkward” if the expulsions became known, so they suppressed
all publicity about it. In the pre-internet age, colonialists got away with a
lot of stuff like that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In 2019, the United Nations General Assembly
voted, 116 to 6, that Britain had to leave the Chagos Archipelago within six
months. The British ignored the UN resolution. Can you imagine how the
international community—including Britain!— would respond if Israel ignored
some six-month deadline set by the United Nations?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>The Washington Post this week pressed the
Biden administration to explain its position. The State Department spokesman
responded that the U.S. “unequivocally supports UK sovereignty” in the Occupied
Mauritian Territory. He said: “The specific arrangement involving the
facilities on Diego Garcia is grounded in the uniquely close and active defense
and security partnership between the United States and the UK.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Oh, I see. If an Occupation is useful to
the Biden administration, then it’s perfectly fine. If nobody is talking about
the Occupied Mauritian Territory in trendy
Manhattan cocktail parties or on MSNBC, then J Street stays silent, and Ben
& Jerry’s can continue selling its ice cream to the personnel in that
Occupation Military Base. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Nobody is demanding a “right of return” for
Chagossians to go back to their archipelago. Nobody claims that the British and
American governments are in danger of “losing their souls” because of their
Occupation of other people’s land. Nobody is calling for boycotts, or
divestments, or sanctions against the Occupation Regime. Nobody is criticizing
the American military “settlement” in Chagossian territory. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>File this one under “H” for hypocrisy. There
could be no more blatant example.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i> Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is a member of the board of <a href="http://www.nishmat.net" target="_blank">Nishmat </a>and author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Stephen M. Flatowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07529775616562530575noreply@blogger.com0