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ISRAEL

‘Pay-for-slay’ Abbas takes his cue from ‘Iran-Deal’ Blinken By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-702916

Following Tuesday night’s terrorist attack in Bnei Brak, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued what the media reported as a “rare condemnation.” While it’s true that Abbas doesn’t usually come out against the murder of Israelis (though, in this case, three of the five people killed were not Jewish), his statement should not be viewed as cause for optimism.

On the contrary, the PA chief hasn’t changed his colors one iota. Nor has he ceased the stipends for “martyrs for Allah” through his proud “pay-for-slay” program. No, the message he conveyed, allegedly due to pressure by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, was carefully worded in a way that would satisfy the powers-that-be in Washington.

“The killing of Palestinian and Israeli civilians will only lead to further deterioration of the situation, especially as we are approaching the holy month of Ramadan and the Christian and Jewish holidays,” he declared, going on to warn “Israeli settlers” and others not to use the “incident” as an excuse to carry out assaults on “our Palestinian people.”

He then referred to the “cycle of violence,” asserting that a “permanent, comprehensive and just peace is the shortest way to provide security and stability for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the entire region.”

As a consistent rejectionist of peace with the Jewish state, whose very existence he opposes, Abbas was simply parroting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

At a joint press conference on Monday in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Blinken reported that he and the Israeli premier had “discussed ways to foster a peaceful Passover, Ramadan and Easter across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, particularly in Jerusalem, a city of such profound importance to Jews, to Christians, to Muslims.”

Crocodile tears and American delusions By Barry Shaw

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/crocodile_tears_and_american_delusions.html

Five killed, many more injured in a terror attack outside Tel Aviv, after Biden restores American funding that the Palestinians use to reward those who kill Jews

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was forced to apologize by his two main patrons, U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken and the king of Jordan, for the deadly Palestinian terror attack in the Bnei Brak residential suburb of Tel Aviv on Tuesday night, 29 March, that killed five people and injured others.

We all know, at least those of us close to the action and who do not live in fantasy land, that the background to the slaughter was the Palestinian leader’s constant incitement against Jews and Israel to his brainwashed people.

This indoctrination is laced with many incentives, some religious, some financial, to pick up a knife or a gun.  Recently, the Palestinian population has been exploited into pre-Ramadan violence by its political and religious leaders.

Sadly, tragically, Ramadan for Palestinians has become a religious ritual of Jewish bloodletting in a nationalistic cause.

Overall demographic reality west of the Jordan River Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/3Lbac3Q

In 2022, in contrast to conventional demographic wisdom, Israel is not facing a potential Arab demographic time bomb in the combined areas of Judea, Samaria (the West Bank) and the pre-1967 Israel. In fact, the Jewish State benefits from a robust Jewish demographic tailwind. 

In 2022, the political and demographic establishment in Israel and the West persist in reverberating the official Palestinian numbers without due-diligence (auditing), ignoring a 50% artificial inflation of the population numbers.

In 2022, Israel is the only Western democracy endowed with a relatively high fertility rate, which facilitates further economic growth with no reliance on migrant labor.  Moreover, Israel’s thriving demography provides for bolstered national security (larger classes of recruits) and a more confident foreign policy.   

In 2022, for the first time – in defiance of projections made by Israel’s demographic establishment since the early 1940s – Israel’s Jewish fertility rate exceeds Israel’s Muslim fertility rate. Moreover, Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than all Arab countries other than Yemen, Iraq and Egypt.

In 2022, Israel is facing a potential wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration) of some 500,000 Olim from the Ukraine, Russia, other former Soviet republics, France, Britain, Germany, etc. 

In 2022, the Westernization of Arab demography persists as a derivative of modernity, urbanization, women’s enhanced social status, women’s enrollment in higher education and increased use of contraceptives. 

Glory or weakness? In the end, at times of crisis, there are no allies for the Jews. The world is unmoved by Ayatollah threats to destroy Israel. Victor Sharpe

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/

I was recently looking back at the obscene 2009 Goldstone Report which unleashed all that we already knew of the world; that it hates the Jews and hates the reconstituted Jewish state. The report’s bigotry, its lies of commission and omission, were made even more unbearable by the fact that a South African Jew foolishly gave his name to it. Such Jews have often wittingly or unwittingly stabbed the very heart of the Jewish People.

I am reminded of some of the words of Menachem Begin when he stood before the graves of three young Jewish patriots, members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, hung by the British Mandatory authorities for merely possessing one unused pistol between them. Begin said the following:

“We believe with perfect faith that the Jewish People is indestructible. A people who suffered the cruelty, the oppression, and the holocausts of the long night of exile, which descended for so many centuries upon it and which, nevertheless, survived each and every one of its more powerful enemies, cannot be destroyed …

MOSHE DANN Why the two-state-solution is a bad idea Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz must stop calling the Palestinian Authority an “entity.”

https://www.jns.org/opinion/why-the-two-state-solution-is-a-bad-idea/?utm_source=The+Daily+Syndicate&utm_campaign=7d0c25a784-Daily+Syndicate+03-20-22+

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s attempt to avoid recognizing the Palestinian Authority as a state by calling it an “entity” does not address the question of its goal: Israel’s destruction. On the contrary, calling it an “entity” complicates the issue by creating yet another layer of ambiguity to disguise what the P.A. really is—a collection of terrorist organizations ruled by the PLO in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza.

In other words, “entity” is a rhetorical mask that enables “kicking the can down the road” for the terrorist quasi-state dedicated to destroying Israel. This isn’t a “solution;” it perpetuates the conflict and poses a threat to regional stability. Nor does it help the Palestinians, most of whom do not support terrorism. Yet, Israel’s government continues to back and fund the P.A. without demanding an end to its incitement.

The so-called “two-state solution” is promoted by those who support Palestinian demands for “self-determination,” and claim that Israel is a racist, apartheid nation illegally “occupying Palestinian territory.” Ignoring the risks, advocates of the “two-state solution” also declare that it’s the only alternative to one state under Israeli or Palestinian-Arab sovereignty “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Carnage in Beersheba and a badge of dishonor  By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-702251

A study presented this week at the “Conference on Politics and Arab Society in Israel”— held on Sunday and Monday at the University of Haifa, in conjunction with the Israel Democracy Institute and the New Israel Fund — shows a steady erosion of public trust in law enforcement and the judiciary. The research, conducted by professors Gideon Fishman and Arie Ratner at the university’s department of sociology, covers the 22-year period beginning in 2000.

What the two academics revealed isn’t a hot news flash to most Israelis. But it’s been particularly apparent since Tuesday afternoon.

That’s when 34-year-old Muhammad Alab Ahmed abu Alkiyan, an Israeli citizen from the Bedouin town of Hura — a married father of five, three of whom have special needs — slaughtered four innocent Jews in Beersheba and seriously wounded two others.

Let us start with the police, who were nowhere to be found during Alkiyan’s car-ramming and stabbing spree that left dead Chabad Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, 48, Laura Yitzhak, 43, Doris Yahbas, 49, and Menahem Yehezkel, 67.

Palestinians: The ‘Criminal’ Pastor Who Met with the Rabbi by Khaled Abu Toameh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18326/palestinians-pastor-rabbi

Appeals by heads of the Christian community in Bethlehem for the release of Shahwan from prison have been completely ignored by the PA leadership, which appears afraid of a backlash from Islamists and other radical groups if it dares to release the pastor. The appeals have also been ignored by many journalists who mostly chose to focus only on stories that reflect negatively on Israel.

Even more alarming is that the Palestinian Authority, which now has close relations with the Biden administration, is punishing a Palestinian Christian for the “crime” of meeting with a Jew.

If the PA is going to incarcerate every Palestinian who meets with settlers or does business with Jews, it will have to build enough prisons to hold tens of thousands of its people. Moreover, if the PA considers meetings with Jews to be a crime punishable by imprisonment and hard labor, why are its leaders continuing to hold public and secret meetings with Israeli officials?

If PA President Mahmoud Abbas himself is prepared to travel to the Israeli city of Rosh Ha’ayin to meet with Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz, whom the Palestinians have repeatedly condemned as a “war criminal,” why isn’t a pastor allowed to meet with a rabbi?

This incident is yet another example of the endemic hypocrisy of the PA regarding its dealings with Israel.

The Beit Al-Liqa incident is also further proof of the PA’s discrimination and mistreatment of the Christian minority.

It is much easier for the PA to arrest a Palestinian pastor than, say, the head of a Muslim clan. The Christians are not going to take to the streets to riot and attack Palestinian security officers when one of their men is arrested. Muslims, by contrast, would not hesitate to attack the PA and confront its security forces.

All this is happening while the Biden administration continues to engage with the PA about the need to revive the peace process and the PA’s purported commitment to the so-called two-state solution, while ignoring the persecution of Christians and major human rights violations committed by the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Johnny Shahwan, a Palestinian Christian from the Bethlehem area, has been in a Palestinian Authority (PA) prison for the past two weeks. Shahwan, a pastor who runs the Beit Al-Liqa (House of Encounter) in the town of Beit Jala, just outside Bethlehem, was arrested for meeting with a Jew who previously served as a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

Biden’s Israel Ambassador Tells BDS Group He Wants Jews Out of Jerusalem “Your agenda is where my heart is.” Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/bidens-israel-ambassador-tells-bds-group-he-wants-daniel-greenfield/

Biden’s ambassador to Israel appeared at a pro-BDS group’s webinar co-hosted by its CEO, who had described Israel as an “oppressive regime”, and told its audience that the real problem with the Palestinian Authority funding terrorism is that “it gives the ‘haters’ an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is ‘paying for people who killed Jews.’”

He also told the anti-Israel group which had cheered the Ben & Jerry’s boycott that, “your agenda is where my heart is.”

At this rate, Thomas Nides will be hugging and kissing Hamas leaders by the end of the year.

Expectations for Nides were already pretty low when the Biden administration announced that it had picked Obama’s former deputy secretary of state as its ambassador to Israel.

Zelensky’s Ahistorical Speech to Israel’s Knesset By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/zelenskys-ahistorical-speech-to-israels-knesset/

Israel surely sides with Ukraine today. But for the record: Ukraine was one of the most violently antisemitic nations in Europe during WWII.

T witter personality Adam Kinzinger recently demanded that American aid to Israel be conditioned on its actions regarding Ukraine. “If we don’t want to directly attack Russia, then our leverage is in the world uniting in sanctions and assistance for the people of Ukraine,” the congressman went on. “This includes everyone, and Israel doesn’t have a special exemption.”

Kinzinger was reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s ahistorical speech to the Knesset. “Why hasn’t Israel seriously sanctioned Russia? Why aren’t you putting pressure on businesses?” asked the Ukrainian leader, who warned that Russians were engaged in their own “final solution.” “Ukrainians made their choice 80 years ago. We saved Jews, and that’s why there are Righteous Gentiles among us. People of Israel, you too now have a choice. Thank you!”

No one can blame Zelensky, in a struggle to save his nation, for attempting to create an emotional and historic bond between Ukraine and other besieged people. It is almost surely the case that the Israeli government is rooting for the Ukrainians. But his speech was a distortion of history. If Israel treated Ukraine as Ukraine did its Jewish citizens during World War II, then the Jewish state would be sending weapons to the Russians.

Zelensky’s unfortunate Knesset address Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/opinion/zelenskys-unfortunate-knesset-address/

Clearly realizing, or having been told by advisers, that he’d crossed a line in his Zoom speech to the Knesset on Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky subsequently softened his tone. In a video message on Telegram several hours later, he said, “Of course, Israel has its interests—strategy—to protect its citizens. We understand all of it. The prime minister of Israel, Mr. [Naftali] Bennett, is trying to find a way of holding talks, and we are grateful for this. We are grateful for his efforts, so that sooner or later we will begin to have talks with Russia, possibly in Jerusalem. That’s the right place to find peace, if possible.”

It is this sentiment that he should have conveyed while calling on Israel’s lawmakers for help. Instead, the leader who is being hailed by much of the world as a heroic David fending off an evil Goliath not only chastised the Jewish state; he totally distorted Holocaust history in the process.

Invoking Golda Meir, he quoted what he called her “famous words.” He said, “We intend to remain alive. Our neighbors want to see us dead. This is not a question that leaves much room for compromise.”
This was his way of tailoring his remarks to the audience, as he had done when speaking to the British Parliament on March 9, the Canadian Parliament on March 15, the U.S. Congress on March 16 and the German Bundestag on March 17. In each case, he cited examples with which the politicians and public could relate. And though his pleas for military aid included criticism that not more is being done to come to Ukraine’s rescue, they also contained clauses of gratitude. His admonitions to Israel, on the other hand, were unequivocal.