RUTHFULLY YOURS

A tree may grow in Brooklyn, but a Saddam Hussein memorial has grown in Qalqilya.

Qalqilya is one of those ancient, historic “Palestinian” cities. So it dates back all the way to 1893. The population of Qalqilya more than quadrupled under Israeli rule. That’s typical of Zionist genocide which somehow vastly increases the number of Arab Muslims and their shrill accusations of genocide.

In the ancient 19th century Palestinian city of Qalqilya, dating back all the way to the days of President Grover Cleveland and the invention of the jukebox, Hamas is popular. It even elected its own mayor before he was removed from office and the Palestinian Authority’s Fatah was put back in charge. Politics in Qalqilya remains a pitched battle between Hamas and Fatah over who hates the Jews more and has the best plan for destroying them.

There isn’t much to do in Qalqilya except visit its zoo. The Qalqilya Zoo is the worst zoo in the world and embodies everything wrong with “Palestine”. Israelis helped set up the zoo as a gesture of peace. It was supposed to be a “jewel in the crown of Palestinian national institutions.”

And it just might be.

Recently, a bear ate a 9-year-old boy’s arm at the zoo. The zebras and the giraffes allegedly died as a result of Muslim attacks on Israelis near the zoo. The self-taught taxidermist who runs the zoo has an exhibition of dead animals he has stuffed and mounted, and whose deaths he blames on Israel.

Like everything else about “Palestine”, Israeli goodwill ended in death and anti-Israel propaganda.

But Qalqilyans or Qalqilyites now have something else to do besides get their arms ripped off by a bear or visit one of the city’s 26 mosques. They can stop by the Saddam Hussein Memorial.

One side of the memorial has Saddam Hussein in a beret saluting himself. The other shows an older Saddam waving his rifle in the air. If the city fathers of Qalqilya had been more on the ball, they could have acquired the Ruger M77 bolt-action rifle in question for under $50K after it was taken from the rubble of his presidential palace in Mosul and sold at auction by a senior CIA officer in Baghdad.

The Saddam Hussein Memorial bears such cheerful welcoming messages as “Saddam Hussein – The Master of the Martyrs in Our Age,” and “Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea.”

Governor Rafi Rawajba compared Saddam, Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas: the current head of the Palestinian Authority. “Saddam was an emblem of heroism, honor, originality and defiance, as was the martyr Yasser Arafat.”

“President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) makes sure to follow in the footsteps of these two great leaders,” he gushed.

Qalqilya Mayor Othman Daoud, also of Fatah, had previously paid tribute to Saddam for sticking to “his principles and the Palestinian cause until his death as a Martyr.”

The governor of Qalqiliya was appointed by Abbas. While the Palestinian Authority president doesn’t have Saddam’s arsenal or snazzy berets, he has the same affinity for democracy as Saddam.

President Abbas was elected to a four-year term in 2005. It’s been the longest four years ever.

Noor Dahri is a director of Pakistan Israel Alliance (PIA) and Editor in Chief of the Newspaper Pak Israel News (PIN).

During the many years since I started talking with my fellow Muslims about their baseless arguments against the state of Israel, I could see them arguing without knowledge. I could tell they know nothing about Israel. They had a few topics to discuss, “illegal settlements, Gaza being blockaded, unlawful occupation and Israeli operations against Hamas, the Holy Land belongs to Palestinians and Palestinians are indigenous habitants of the land.” Most are not willing to find accurate facts behind these topics. They are not even interested in listening or reading information when someone shows them the truth; they only know how to single out and bash Israel.

Once they get defeated in speaking with Israelis or they even feel they are not winning the topic they started, they start abusing the other speaker and begin using foul language against and about the Jewish people. I think no one taught them how to win a debate, and they did not learn to defame Israel in a proper way. You cannot win the argument until you have enough knowledge about what you are arguing about. For example, if you are going to single out Israel, but you know nothing about the real history of Israel, you have never met any Israeli or even you have never met any Palestinian either, you simply cannot do the discussion.

Therefore, I am going to help you learn to go about defeating the Israelis (and Zionists) in any debate. I will tell you three important formulas not to bring into the discussion so that you will never be shamed in arguments with any Israelis or Zionists. You just need to grasp and be able to have full knowledge of how to skip these three formulas.

Formula Number 1- No Religious Grounds:

Start by reading your holy Quran, Chapter Number 17, Verse Number 104

“And We said after Pharaoh to the Children of Israel, “Dwell in the land, and when there comes the promise of the Hereafter, we will bring you forth in [one] gathering.”

وَقُلۡنَا مِنۢ بَعۡدِهِۦ لِبَنِىٓ إِسۡرَٲٓءِيلَ ٱسۡكُنُواْ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ فَإِذَا جَآءَ وَعۡدُ ٱلۡأَخِرَةِ جِئۡنَا بِكُمۡ لَفِيفً۬ا

Next read Chapter Number 05, Verse Number 21.

“O my people (the Jews)! Enter the Holy Land, which God has assigned unto you”

يَـٰقَوۡمِ ٱدۡخُلُواْ ٱلۡأَرۡضَ ٱلۡمُقَدَّسَةَ ٱلَّتِى كَتَبَ ٱللَّهُ لَكُمۡ وَلَا تَرۡتَدُّواْ عَلَىٰٓ أَدۡبَارِكُمۡ فَتَنقَلِبُواْ خَـٰسِرِينَ

Notice that both of these verses support the Jewish land of Israel. Now, will you deny these verses or erase these verses from the Quran? I know you will never dare to do this. Stop bringing religion into this conflict, otherwise no one can save you from being defeated and if you deny these verses, you are actually denying your religion and thereby committing blasphemy. Another thing must remember that we Muslims believe Israeli prophets and accept that they all came from the tribe of Israel (Jacob) and belonged to the land of Israel. We could not deny these grounds so better to not discuss religion on this matter and just ignore the religious grounds on this conflict.

It is precisely the inflammatory speech of Abbas and his senior officials, expressed at every possible podium, which has been trying to turn the conflict into a religious one.

If any side has turned the conflict into a religious one, it is the Palestinian side, which has long depicted Jews as sons of monkeys and pigs, enemies of Allah, and killers of prophets. When Abbas and other Palestinians accuse Jews on a daily basis of “storming” and “desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, they are firing the first shots in their religious war against Israel and the Jews.

By turning the conflict into a religious one, the Palestinians are hoping to avoid any discussion about important issues such as security, borders, the status of Jerusalem, anti-Israel incitement and assaults on public freedoms under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Palestinian leaders do not feel comfortable discussing any of these issues; that is why they prefer to make the debate appear as if it is about religious issues.

Despite vocal and self-righteous claims to the contrary, Palestinian leaders continue to incite their people and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world against Israel and Jews. For the past two and a half years, these leaders have been accusing Israel and Jews of seeking to turn the Israeli-Arab conflict into a religious one. The accusation refers specifically to visits by Jews to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The truth, however, is just the opposite: it is the Palestinians that have been aiming at every turn to transform the political and territorial conflict into a religious one.

By turning the conflict into a religious one, the Palestinians are hoping to avoid any discussion about important issues such as security, borders, the status of Jerusalem, anti-Israel incitement and assaults on public freedoms under the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas. Palestinian leaders do not feel comfortable discussing any of these issues; that is why they prefer to make the debate appear as if it is about religious issues.

Palestinian leaders are also hoping that the entire Islamic world will rally against Israel once they are told that Islamic holy sites are allegedly being targeted and desecrated by Jews.

The Palestinian Authority is toe-to-toe with Hamas in this unceasing incitement. The two rival Palestinian parties may disagree about almost everything, but when it comes to libeling Israel and Jews, they have no differences.

Jewish tours of the Temple Mount in the past two and a half years, contrary to Palestinian claims, have not affected the “status quo” or existing state of affairs at the holy site whatsoever. The Islamic holy sites, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, have not been “defiled” or “destroyed” as the result of the presence of Jews at the Temple Mount. More significantly, Muslims’ access to their holy sites on the Temple Mount remains unchanged. Every day, thousands of Muslim worshippers converge on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock to perform prayers. On Fridays, the number of Muslim worshippers is sometimes estimated at tens of thousands.

Jewish visits to the Temple Mount are restricted to the early hours of the morning. Jewish visitors, in fact, are even banned from praying at the Temple Mount. The current regulations on the Temple Mount explicitly forbids praying by Jews, and the police have banned Jews from carrying any articles that might lead a Jew to pray. Jews who visited the Temple Mount during the recent autumn harvest holiday of Sukkot were forbidden from bringing the “Four Species” — the citrus, myrtle, willow and palm frond — that are mandated by the Torah to be used as part of the services on each of the seven days of the holiday.

These restrictions, however, have not stopped the Palestinians from pursuing their campaign of incitement against Israel and Jews. At the core of this campaign is the false and libelous claim that Israel is seeking to destroy the Islamic holy sites and rebuild the Third Temple on their ruins. They supplement this fabricated and malicious charge with the unholy statement that the Jews are “defiling with their filthy feet” the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Notably, it is the same excuse that Osama bin Laden used against the United States when he said that Americans were “defiling” Saudi Arabia simply by walking on the ground there.

A British MP attempted to catch Czech President Milos Zeman off guard by asking how peace in the Middle East can be obtained during a Council of Europe discussion. Zeman responded with pro-Israel statements that stunned the others in the room.

Even though it is only an observer in the Council of Europe, Israel was the recipient of usually blunt support during a discussion in France. When a British official asked Czech President Milos Zeman about the conflict in the Middle East, Zeman responded with pro-Israel remarks, which surprised the other European officials in the room.

The Council of Europe, headquartered in Strasbourg, deals almost exclusively with the cooperation between EU states regarding human rights, democracy and international law. However, the British MP attempted to change the topic of the discussion by surprising Zeman with the following question: “What can you do, and what can we do, to bring peace to the Middle East?”

Zeman did not hesitate and after a very brief pause, he firmly answered the British official: “My response will probably be [a] deep disappointment for you. I am a friend of Israel, [a] deep friend of Israel, and that is why I think that the peace in the Middle East…is to be based primarily in [sic] the safety of Israel.”

“I know the history of all [the] wars starting in [sic] 1948,” he added. “Every war was victorious for Israel…[because] being defeated would mean the end of this state, the Jewish state.”

“I think, unfortunately, that in some countries or movements- let us mention Hezbollah, Hamas and others-…survives the tendency to diminish Israel, to destroy Israel,” he continued. Regarding the way to achieve peace, Zeman said that the terrorist organizations in the Middle East need to be disarmed, explicitly mentioning Hamas and Hezbollah by name.

Zeman’s speech left those in the room stunned even though the Czech Republic and Israel have very good relations. Recently, The Czech parliament recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. In addition, Prague decided to condemn UNESCO following its anti-Israel resolutions.

In an interview with Channel 2 News Online, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO and the Council of Europe Carmel Shama-Hacohen said that Zeman is “a true friend of Israel who told the simple truth about Israel.”

Over last week’s Sukkot holiday, Israeli Arab couple Khalil and Reem Bakly launched their own personal coexistence venture by building a completely kosher sukkah (aided by an Orthodox Jewish employee of Khalil’s dental practice) and inviting any and all Israeli Jews to come visit. That same week, a delegationcomprised entirely of Israeli Arabs—Muslims, Christians, and Druze—made final preparations for a speaking tour defending Israel on American college campuses.https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/israeli-arabs-growing-israeli-identity/

Both could easily be dismissed as unrepresentative of Israel’s Arab community. After all, that very same week, Arab Knesset member Haneen Zoabi asserted in a speech in Dallas that Jews have no right to self-determination, because “the Jews are not a nationality.” And Zoabi, who is only slightly more inflammatory than her party colleagues, was elected on a joint ticket that receives the overwhelming majority of Israeli Arab votes.

But as a recent poll of Israeli Arabs proves, the community is changing—and not in Zoabi’s favor.

Perhaps most striking was the fact that a decisive majority of respondents identified primarily as Israeli rather than Palestinian, which is something that wasn’t true even a few years ago. In 2012, for instance, just 32.5 percent of Israeli Arabs defined themselves as “Israeli” rather than Palestinian. But the figure has risen fairly steadily, and this year, asked “which term best describes you,” 54 percent of respondents chose some variant of “Israeli” (the most popular choice was “Israeli Arab,” followed by “Arab citizen of Israel,” “Israeli,” and “Israeli Muslim”). That’s more than double the 24 percent who chose some variant of “Palestinian” (15 percent chose simply “Palestinian.” The others chose “Palestinian in Israel,” “Palestinian citizen in Israel,” or “Israeli Palestinian”).

Moreover, 63 percent deemed Israel a “positive” place to live, compared to 34 percent who said the opposite. 60 percent had a favorable view of Israel, compared to 37 percent whose view was unfavorable. These are smaller majorities than either question would receive among Israeli Jews, but they are still decisive. Even among Muslims, the most ambivalent group, the favorable-to-unfavorable ratio was a statistical tie (49:48). Among Christians, it was 61:33, and among Druze, 94:6.

One of Zoabi’s colleagues, MK Yousef Jabareen, hastened to assure the Jerusalem Post that Israeli Arabs must view Israel more negatively than the poll indicates, because “when I meet with people from my community, I always hear concerns about increasing discrimination and racism,” as well as “socioeconomic status, an absence of jobs and housing.” Nor is he wrong about his community’s concerns: Fully 47 percent of respondents felt that, as Arabs, they are “generally treated unequally.” Many were also worried about economic issues and their community’s high crime rate.

But what Jabareen evidently hasn’t grasped is that having an overall favorable view of one’s country in no way contradicts having a long list of complaints about it. After all, Israeli Jews complain constantly about their country’s shortcomings while still believing that its merits outweigh its demerits. Why shouldn’t Israeli Arabs do the same?

The comparison with Israel’s neighbors has obviously grown starker following the implosion of several Arab countries since 2011, and it’s undoubtedly a major factor in Israeli Arabs’ growing appreciation for Israel. But government efforts to improve their socioeconomic situation have also contributed.

For instance, a joint initiative between the government and the country’s biggest private-sector employers produced a sharp increase in the number of Israeli Arabs working at these companies, which typically offer better pay, benefits and promotion opportunities than smaller firms. At several participating companies, Arabs now comprise 14 percent of payroll—less than their share of the population, but roughly equivalent to their share of the workforce.

The government has also invested more money in Arab schools, which—together with a new emphasis on education within the Arab community—has helped booststudents’ performance. The proportion of students taking the matriculation exams is now roughly the same for Arabs and Jews, and while more Jews still pass, the gap has narrowed. Indeed, two Arab high schools now rank first and second in the country for academic achievement.

As the Taylor Force Act, which would cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority (PLO) unless it ceases paying terrorists to kill Israelis, moves forward, the attempts to neuter it move forward as well.

The arguments are familiar. The Taylor Force Act would impede “security cooperation” by a terrorist organization. And it would punish the poor innocent “Palestinians” for terrorism that they support in poll after poll. And so the call is on to neuter the Taylor Force Act into irrelevance.

Martin Sherman has a great piece shredding an article by, among others, Obama crony, Dennis Ross, advancing a variation of that argument at the Washington Institute. Its conclusion has quite a bomb hidden in its tail. One that its authors haven’t quite thought through.

In attempting to bring this pernicious PA policy to a halt, members of Congress who are formulating the Taylor Force Act should proceed carefully. There should definitely be no “pay to slay,” but the approach needs to recognize that shades of gray enter into dealing with an issue like this. Being smart counts for more than being right. And the smart approach is one that also recognizes that innocent Palestinians, who have not been able to vote in an election for more than a decade, should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of a government they cannot control.

“Smart”. That’s the theme here. Don’t do the right thing. Do the “smart” thing. It worked really well for Obama. But the siren song of smart is seductive. Especially to those who like to think they are.

But let’s skip to that final sentence.”Palestinians, who have not been able to vote in an election for more than a decade, should not be forced to pay for the mistakes of a government they cannot control.”

That’s a good point. Just not the one that Dennis thinks he’s making.

If they can’t control their government, how is it their government? If they can’t control their government, why are we funding that government on their behalf. And finally… if they can’t control their government, then why is Israel being pressured into a worthless peace process with that government?

If the residents of the West Bank and Gaza aren’t properly represented by the Palestinian Authority when it funds terrorism, are they properly represented by it when negotiating with Israel?

How can you hold one position, but not the other?

Either the PA represents the so-called “Palestinians”. Or it doesn’t.

If it doesn’t represent them when it funds terrorism, it doesn’t represent them when it comes to getting US money or negotiating with Israel. And we must immediately stop sending the PA money and pressuring Israel to negotiate with it.

If it does, then all aid must end until the PA stops funding terrorism.