https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11230/palestinian-militias-gaza The notion that Hamas would ever dismantle its security apparatus and deliver the Gaza Strip to Mahmoud Abbas’s forces is a fantasy. It is estimated that there are about 50 different militias operating in the Gaza Strip. These militias are said to be in possession of about a million pieces of weaponry. If Hamas […]
“The coming into being of a Jewish state in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective, not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand, or even three thousand years.” (Winston Churchill)
The establishment of the state in 1948; the fulfillment of its envisioned role as home and haven for Jews from around the world; its wholehearted embrace of democracy and the rule of law; and its impressive scientific, cultural, and economic achievements are accomplishments beyond my wildest imagination.
For centuries, Jews around the world prayed for a return to Zion. We are the lucky ones who have seen those prayers answered. I am grateful to witness this most extraordinary period in Jewish history and Jewish sovereignty ― in the words of Hatikvah, Israel’s national anthem, “to be a free people in our land, the land of Zion and Jerusalem.”
And when one adds the key element, namely, that all this took place not in the Middle West but in the Middle East, where Israel’s neighbors determined from day one to destroy it through any means available to them — from full-scale wars to wars of attrition; from diplomatic isolation to international delegitimation; from primary to secondary to even tertiary economic boycotts; from terrorism to the spread of anti-Semitism, often thinly veiled as anti-Zionism — the story of Israel’s first 69 years becomes all the more remarkable.
No other country has faced such a constant challenge to its very right to exist, even though the age-old biblical, spiritual, and physical connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel is unique in the annals of history.
Indeed, that connection is of a totally different character from the basis on which, say, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or the bulk of Latin American countries were established, that is, by Europeans with no legitimate claim to those lands who decimated indigenous populations and proclaimed their own authority. Or, for that matter, North African countries that were conquered and occupied by Arab-Islamic invaders who totally redefined their national character. Or nations like Iraq and Jordan, which were created by Western powers for self-serving reasons.
No other country has faced such overwhelming odds against its very survival, or experienced the same degree of never-ending international demonization by too many nations ready to throw integrity and morality to the wind, and slavishly follow the will of the energy-rich and more numerous Arab states.
Yet Israelis have never succumbed to a fortress mentality, never abandoned their deep yearning for peace with their neighbors or willingness to take unprecedented risks to achieve that peace (as was the case with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, for example, and in the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005), never lost their zest for life, and never flinched from their determination to build a vibrant, democratic state.
This story of nation-building is entirely without precedent.
Here was a people brought to the brink of utter destruction by the genocidal policies of Nazi Germany and its allies. Here was a people shown to be utterly powerless to influence a largely indifferent world to stop, or even slow down, the Final Solution. And here was a people, numbering barely 600,000, living cheek-by-jowl with often hostile Arab neighbors, under unsympathetic British occupation, on a harsh soil with no significant natural resources other than human capital in what was then Mandatory Palestine.
That the blue-and-white flag of an independent Israel could be planted on this land, to which the Jewish people had been intimately linked since the time of Abraham, just three years after the end of the Holocaust — and with the support of a decisive majority of UN members at the time (33 in favor, 13 opposed, with ten abstentions) — truly boggles the mind.
And what’s more, that this tiny community of Jews, including survivors of the Holocaust who had somehow made their way to Mandatory Palestine despite the British blockade and British detention camps in Cyprus, could successfully defend themselves against the onslaught of five Arab standing armies, is almost beyond imagination.
To understand the essence of Israel’s meaning, it is enough to ask how the history of the Jewish people might have been different had there been a Jewish state in 1933, in 1938, or even in 1941. If Israel had controlled its borders and the right of entry instead of Britain, if Israel had had embassies and consulates throughout Europe, how many more Jews might have escaped and found sanctuary?
Instead, Jews had to rely on the goodwill of embassies and consulates of other countries and, with woefully few exceptions, they found there neither the “good” nor the “will” to assist.
I witnessed firsthand what Israeli embassies and consulates meant to Jews drawn by the pull of Zion or the push of hatred. I stood in the courtyard of the Israeli embassy in Moscow and saw thousands of Jews seeking a quick exit from a Soviet Union in the throes of cataclysmic change, fearful that the change might be in the direction of renewed chauvinism and anti-Semitism.
Awestruck, I watched up-close as Israel never faltered, not even for a moment, in transporting Soviet Jews to the Jewish homeland, even as Scud missiles launched from Iraq traumatized the nation in 1991. It says a lot about the conditions they were leaving behind that these Jews continued to board planes for Tel Aviv while missiles were exploding in Israeli population centers. In fact, on two occasions I sat in sealed rooms with Soviet Jewish families who had just arrived in Israel during these missile attacks. Not once did any of them question their decision to establish new lives in the Jewish state. And equally, it says a lot about Israel that, amid all the pressing security concerns, it managed to continue to welcome these new immigrants without missing a beat.
And how can I ever forget the surge of pride — Jewish pride — that completely enveloped me 40 years ago, in July 1976, on hearing the astonishing news of Israel’s daring rescue of the 106 Jewish hostages held by Arab and German terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda, over 2,000 miles from Israel’s borders? The unmistakable message: Jews in danger will never again be alone, without hope, and totally dependent on others for their safety.
Not least, I can still remember, as if it were yesterday, my very first visit to Israel. It was in 1970, and I was not quite 21 years old.
I didn’t know what to expect, but I recall being quite emotional from the moment I boarded the El Al plane to the very first glimpse of the Israeli coastline from the plane’s window. As I disembarked, I surprised myself by wanting to kiss the ground. In the ensuing weeks, I marveled at everything I saw. To me, it was as if every apartment building, factory, school, orange grove, and Egged bus was nothing less than a miracle. A state, a Jewish state, was unfolding before my very eyes.
Editor’s note: As revealed in recent congressional testimony, Students for Justice in Palestine is a campus front for Hamas terrorists. SJP’s propaganda activities are orchestrated and funded by a Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine, whose chairman is Hatem Bazian and whose principals are former officers of the Holy Land Foundation and other Islamic “charities” previously convicted of funneling money to Hamas.
The David Horowitz Freedom Center is naming the “Top Ten Worst Schools that Support Terrorists.” The latest school to be named to this list is the University of Houston which will host the National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference on October 27-29, 2017. The report and posters are part of a larger Freedom Center campaign titled Stop University Support for Terrorists.
Images of the posters that appeared at the University of Houston and other campuses named to the list may be viewed at www.stopuniversitysupportforterrorists.org. Coinciding with the naming of the University of Houston to this list, the Freedom Center placed posters on the UH campus exposing the links between Students for Justice in Palestine and the terrorist organization Hamas, whose stated goal is the destruction of the Jewish state. Freedom Center founder David Horowitz will speak on the Houston campus on November 2nd.
University of Houston:
The University of Houston is home to an increasing radical and Hamas-promoting chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, as is shown by the choice of that campus to host SJP’s2017 National Conference, a restricted event that spreads hatred of the Jews and teaches Hamas propaganda techniques to SJP chapters who attend from across America. UH SJP and MSA co-hosted an event featuring Sheikh Omar Suleiman who has publicly supported a “3rd Intifada” and SJP has also hosted anti-Israel poet Remi Kanazi who promotes the Hamas-backed BDS movement against Israel. UH SJP also hosts annual “Israeli Apartheid” hate weeks featuring a mock Israeli “apartheid wall” plastered with Hamas propaganda including the genocidal slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” and blood libel claiming that Israel targets Palestinian children for slaughter.
Supporting evidence:
In June 2017, U. Houston SJP announced that the 2017 SJP National Conference—a highly secretive event that spreads hatred of Israel and teaches Hamas propaganda tactics to SJP members from campuses across the nation—would be hosted on their campus in the Fall. SJP National is part of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist network and receives funding from Hamas through an intermediary Hamas front group, American Muslims for Palestine.
During an “Israel Apartheid Week 2017” that was hosted on campus in March, Students for Justice in Palestine erected a mock “Israeli Apartheid Wall” plastered with Hamas propaganda denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state. One panel of the wall contained the slogan, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” a call for the total destruction of Israel—which lies between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. This is the same goal which Hamas endorses in its charter. Another panel of the wall contains an image of the series of Hamas propaganda maps purporting to show the Jewish colonization of Arab Palestine, a nation that has never existed. A third panel states, “If you want to find a safe place in Gaza, do not stand near a child,” implying that Israel deliberately targets Palestinian children with its weapons. In fact it is Hamas that places its rocket launchers in civilian areas and uses Palestinian children as human shields for its terrorist activities. A fourth panel accuses Israel of targeting mosques, schools, and slums in an effort to kill civilians and declares “It is not war, it is murder.” These declarations are Hamas propaganda lies. In fact, Hamas takes pains to use civilian dwellings and areas to launch rocket fire against Israel so that when Israel retaliates, they can point to the resulting civilian casualties as evidence of Israel’s inhumanity.
An event co-hosted by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and SJP during Israeli Apartheid Week 2017 featured UH African-American Studies Chair and Communist Party member Dr. Gerald Horne who spoke on “The Black Radical Tradition and Palestine.” Horne endorsed the genocidal and Hamas-promoted and funded Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, stating “Just as we enlist more black organizations into the BDS movement, boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement..it would…give a direct boost to BDS if we had the Palestinian forces and their allies internationally speak out more on police terrorism.” When a group of Zionist students attempted to speak during the question-and-answer session, and to students outside the lecture hall, pro-Palestinian students surrounded them and chanted slogans such as “free, free, Palestine, occupation is a crime!” until they were forced to leave and abandon the attempt at dialogue. An article about the event proudly declared that “Zionists were driven away.”
In March 2017, UH SJP released a statement purportedly opposing anti-Semitism which in fact demonstrated several forms of anti-Semitism including denying Jews self-determination and delegitimizing the Jewish state. The statement declared, “We are committed to building a world that values justice and equality, not oppression and apartheid. That commitment also requires us to reject the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism: we oppose Zionism and Israel’s discriminatory policies, and we condemn anti-Semitism.”
During March 2017, UH SJP hosted “BDS 101,” an event dedicated to promoting the genocidal BDS movement against Israel.
In January 2017, UH SJP shared a video from Jewish Voice for Peace on its Facebook page on “What is Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” that purports to show a timeline of Israel’s occupation of Palestine which includes “ethnic cleansing” of 750,000 Palestinians and “conquest, destruction and expulsion which has continued to the present day.” It also accuses Israel of a “brutal military occupation” and a system of “racial discrimination” that amounts to “apartheid.”
Mr. Shapiro was the Obama administration’s ambassador to Israel…..This column promotes the notion of an embassy move facilitating a two state dissolution of Israel. his peace processing should be viewed cum granu salis…..rsk
President Trump, like his three predecessors, has so far waived the 1995 law requiring the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. This month he told Mike Huckabee on the Trinity Broadcast Network that he will delay the move further to give his nascent peace initiative “a shot.”
But Mr. Trump has created the perfect opportunity to combine his unveiling of a U.S. peace plan with an announcement that he will be moving the embassy to the Israeli capital.
The administration indicates Mr. Trump will announce his peace proposal later this year. To gain approval from Palestinians and Arab states, it will need to include an explicit endorsement of a Palestinian state. He will need to be clear that such a state must commit to live in peace alongside Israel, accept provisions to ensure Israel’s security, and recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
That is consistent with Israeli policy. According to U.S. officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in closed conversations, has reiterated his commitment to his 2009 Bar-Ilan speech that supports “a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognizes the Jewish state.” And foreign diplomats report that U.S. officials have confirmed they understand a two-state solution must be included in any viable U.S. peace plan.
Packaging the unveiling of a U.S. peace plan with an announcement of the embassy move could ensure that the latter reinforces the former. But Mr. Trump must be clear on two points: The embassy will relocate to West Jerusalem, the area of the city under undisputed Israeli sovereignty. He also must explain that East Jerusalem’s status will need to be negotiated, and the U.S. expects the outcome to include a Palestinian capital in the city’s Arab neighborhoods, as part of a unified city.
This approach has two advantages. First, it reorients U.S. policy toward a two-state solution. Second, it punctures myths that both sides use to deceive themselves and delay progress. Palestinians will see that the U.S. strongly supports historic Jewish and Israeli claims to Jerusalem, and Israelis will hear from their ally that to end the conflict they need to acknowledge a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
There are signs of openness on both sides. Arab states, which already acknowledge Israel as a strategic partner, will be able to help persuade the Palestinians that they will gain from the U.S. endorsement of a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. In advance, it will be necessary for the U.S. to discuss these ideas with Arabs and the Palestinians to help prepare them for the embassy move.
In Israel, there is recognition from surprising quarters that the Jewish state’s own interests require a new approach on Jerusalem. As Ben Caspit reported in al-Monitor, Anat Berko, a Likud member of the Knesset, handpicked by Mr. Netanyahu, has presented a plan that would transfer control of most East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods from Israel to the Palestinian Authority. That would help ensure a stable Jewish majority in Israeli Jerusalem. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has long expressed concern about the demographic balance in Israel. His position logically suggests that Israel has no interest in absorbing the more than 300,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. As growing numbers of Arab residents accept Israel’s offer to apply for citizenship, the Israeli Interior Ministry seems to be having second thoughts.
THE DRUMBEAT OF ALARM GROWS LOUDER FOR BRITISH JEWS
Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to attend next month’s dinner in London to celebrate the centenary of the Balfour Declaration confirms what many have long suspected.
His antipathy to Israel goes way beyond hostility to Israeli “settlements” or any romantic attachment to the Palestinian cause. He does not support the existence of Israel at all.
How else to explain his refusal to attend a dinner to celebrate the event which kick-started the (agonising) process that eventually resulted in the establishment of the State of Israel?
And if he thus opposes the self-determination of the Jewish people in their own ancestral homeland, how can he be anything other than hostile to Judaism itself? For Judaism comprises three inseparable elements: the people, the religion and the land. Judaism is, simply and indivisibly, the mission of the Jewish people to form a nation of priests within the land of Israel.
Of course, neither Corbyn and his hard-left cabal, nor the so-called soft-left whose views about Israel may be less extreme but are no less problematic, have any insight into their own bigotry because they have virtually no understanding of what Judaism means (and that goes for many Jews on the left too, who equally deploy the spurious mantra that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism as their get-out-of-jail-free card).
But hey, some folk are very happy with Corbyn’s Balfour dinner snub; there are reports that the JC story about it has been tweeted by Hamas.
Many British Jews are now shuddering at the possibility of a Corbyn-led Labour government. They are heartbroken and aghast at what has happened to the country that for the half-century following the liberation of Belsen they believed offered them not just physical but psychological safety.
Some, like Angela Epstein in this article, are now talking of emigrating should Corbyn come to power.
She describes how her children’s Jewish schools in Manchester were encircled by fences, CCTV cameras and security guards.
“Elsewhere, every Jewish building now has a guard permanently stationed at the door. In 21st-century Britain — the place of our birth and our home.
“Most Jewish people I know have endured cat-calling as they leave synagogues, schools or other Jewish centres. There have been countless Saturday mornings when, as I walk to synagogue, a car screeches past with the occupants shouting something indeterminate from the window. Friends have had eggs thrown at them.
“My son was subjected to a blistering verbal attack when he recently wore his Jewish skullcap on the London Underground.Little wonder that in a YouGov poll earlier this year for the Campaign Against Antisemitism, almost a third of British Jews said they had considered leaving the country, while one in six said they feel unwelcome here.”
This cultural poison has been swelling for years. The Labour party hasn’t created it but is merely its most visible expression – and as a result is legitimising its further increase. Epstein observes:
“As the Labour Party continues to reveal its toxic underbelly, for many British Jews the question of uprooting our families and leaving Britain is a matter of when, not if… If history has taught us Jews anything, it’s knowing when it’s time to pack.”
Actually, it’s hard to know that. The difficulties and risks of remaining have to outweigh the difficulties and risks of uprooting; and people find themselves at very different points along that sliding scale. But for sure, the drumbeat of alarm among many committed British Jews is growing louder by the day.
BRITS STILL TWO-FACED OVER BALFOUR
http://www.melaniephillips.com/hmg-still-two-faced-balfour/
Astonishingly, the British Foreign Office is still continuing to undermine the Balfour Declaration, the centenary of which falls in a couple of weeks’ time.
In a speech at the UN Security Council a few days ago Jonathan Allen, the UK’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, said the following:
“From the outset, I would like to make clear, as we approach the centenary of the Balfour Declaration next month, that the UK understands and respects the sensitivities many have about the Declaration and the events that have taken place in the region since 1917.
“The UK is proud to have played a role in helping to make a Jewish homeland a reality. And we continue to support the principle of such a homeland and the modern state of Israel.
“Just as we fully support the modern state of Israel as a Jewish homeland, we also fully support the objective of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. The occupation is a continued impediment to securing the political rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine. And let us remember, there are two halves of Balfour, the second half of which has not been fulfilled. There is therefore unfinished business” (my emphasis).
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 delegation from Reservists on Duty presenting at Chabad of Stanford. Photo: Chabad of Stanford.
A delegation of Israeli Arabs who are fighting the delegitimization of the Jewish state on college campuses remain committed to sharing their message in the United States, despite facing threats back home and unexpected obstacles from allies abroad.
The delegation — made up of Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bedouin and Palestinian volunteers — came on behalf of the advocacy group Reservists on Duty, and braved intense pressure to defend Israel abroad, RoD chief Amit Deri told The Algemeiner.
Dema Taya, a 25-year-old Israeli-Arab Muslim, said she received a barrage of abusive comments after her views on her country and plans to join the RoD tour were shared on Arab media.
“I received a lot of messages on Facebook threatening me and attacking me,” Taya recounted in an interview with The Algemeiner. “It was emotionally very difficult for me, because they wrote very harsh comments and insulted me personally, just because I am saying the truth … it was really painful.”
Taya added that some Arab outlets falsely reported that the RoD trip — organized in coordination with Students Supporting Israel — was actually planned by the Israeli government.
“Arab media just brainwashes the minds of young people,” she said. “There are more minorities, Muslim women and men, who think like me but they are afraid to talk because not everyone can stand in front of these attacks.”
She pointed to support she received from other Israeli Arabs, including one Muslim woman, who told her in a private message, “I am with you, I think like you, but I will not write this in the comments because they will attack me.”
While Taya’s family also supports her — her husband served in the Israeli military — she observed that her opponents would have been willing to forcefully silence her, if given the chance.
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.”
