RUTHFULLY YOURS

How do you build a state for people who don’t want it built? That’s the obvious question that emerges from the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of Rawabi, the first new Palestinian city. It’s a flagship project that international diplomats routinely laud as a model of Palestinian state-building, but it has won no such praise from fellow Palestinians. Instead, the very people it was meant to benefit are now accusing Rawabi’s founder of collaboration with the enemy for having committed such horrendous crimes – this is not a joke – as providing residents with electricity and running water.

Rawabi was founded with the goal of providing decent, affordable housing for middle-class Palestinians – theoretically a goal that should be welcomed by the Palestinian Authority and its residents, who routinely complain to the international community about how wretched their situation is. From the start, however, the PA did its best to undermine the project; despite repeated promises of support, it refused to provide even the basic infrastructure that most governments routinely provide to new residential developments. Thus as JTA reported last week, Rawabi’s water and sewage system, streets, schools and medical clinic were all financed, like the houses themselves, by entrepreneur Bashar Masri and the Qatari government.

On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon published an op-ed in The New York Times to ‎do what he does best: Pummel Israel while protesting against those who call him to task for it.‎

In the piece, Ban whined that the statements he made last week — first calling on both the ‎Jewish state and the “occupied Palestinian territories” to stop the violence, and then doubling ‎down on his assertion that Israeli “occupation” was the real culprit behind it — were unjustly ‎‎”twisted” to imply that he was justifying terrorism.‎

That the U.N. chief had said it was “human nature” for downtrodden people like the Palestinians ‎to express their frustration through violence had something to do with Israel’s adverse reaction to ‎his words, particularly since he hasn’t said such things about al-Qaida, Islamic State, Hezbollah ‎or Boko Haram. You know, the group that on Saturday night burned 86 Nigerian villagers alive, ‎among them many children.‎

But Ban nevertheless repeated his anti-Israel accusations.‎

To prove that he had been unfairly misquoted not once but twice, he clarified: “The stabbings, ‎vehicle rammings and other attacks by Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians are reprehensible. So, ‎too, are the incitement of violence and the glorification of killers. Nothing excuses terrorism. I ‎condemn it categorically.”‎

Readers did not have time to heave the slightest sigh of relief, however, since Ban proceeded ‎from there to explain why Israel is nevertheless responsible.‎

The State Department said today it’s trying to verify a Saudi report that nine Americans were among 33 swept up in an anti-terrorism operation in the kingdom.

The Saudi Gazette reported Sunday that four Americans were arrested a week ago and five more were taken into custody later in the week. Also seized during that period were 14 Saudis, three Yemenis, two Syrians, an Indonesian, a Filipino, an Emirati, a Kazakh and a Palestinian.

It wasn’t clear what their terror links may have been; the Saudis have arrested many suspected ISIS members over the past several months.

On Friday, four people were killed and 36 were wounded in a suicide bombing and shooting at Al-Ridha Mosque in Al-Ahsa province. The casualty count would have been higher had security not stopped the attackers at the gate.

A surviving 27-year-old terrorist at the mosque “sustained major injuries after being thrashed by worshippers,” Arab News reported.

It’s not know if any of the detained Americans were connected to that plot. The Arab News called the terror arrests a “pre-emptive crackdown.”