He Said-They Said: Mahmoud Abbas October 14th speech, and the Mainstream Media

Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas (AP)

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority’s president, delivered an important televised speech to Arab-Palestinian society on October the 14th last year, during the height of a newly resurgent period of violence, which some commentators thought to be the opening salvo of a new Arab-Palestinian intifada or uprising. AFP (Agence-France Presse) described the speech in an article entitled “Abbas says he backs 'peaceful' struggle against Israeli occupation”:

"Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday he favours "peaceful, popular resistance" against Israeli occupation, amid a two-week wave of violence that has killed more than 30 people on both sides.

In a speech broadcast on official Palestinian television, his first since the outbreak of the violence, Abbas spoke of the Palestinian people's 'right to defend ourselves' and 'pursue our national struggle'."

The ‘Abbas favours “peaceful, popular resistance” against Israeli occupation’ sentiment was echoed in other mainstream syndicated news services. Aron Heller, of the Associated Press, wrote:

“In a brief speech Wednesday, Abbas called for a peaceful "national struggle." He also threatened to submit a case to the International Criminal Court against what he called Israel's "extrajudicial killings" of Palestinians.”

That same day RTE’s 9 PM news programme featured a report by Carol Coleman (“Two Palestinians shot dead in latest spate of attacks in Israel”) which presented the speech thusly:

“This evening Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas held firm, saying that Palestinians would continue to struggle for the project of nation or state-hood. He spoke of the right to self defence but called for non-violent resistance.”

Al Jazeera America stated:

"Addressing Palestinians for the first time since the violence began, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in a recorded televised speech he supported 'peaceful and popular' struggle against Israel."

The Xinhua News Agency similarly emphasised Abbas’ supposed desire for a meaningful peace, while in an article carrying the headline “Palestinians still extend hand for real peace process: Abbas”, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) also described the speech in peaceful terms.

What Abbas really said

The reader would rightly understand such descriptions of the speech as the first seeds of a de-escalation of violence. However, the speech was received very differently in Israel.

Most sectors of Israeli society, including some segments of the more “dovish” left, condemned Abbas’ speech. Indeed, the leader of the liberal secular Yesh Atid party lambasted the speech in the strongest possible terms.

Which perspective on the speech is correct? A full English translation provided by the Jerusalem Post (much of which is reproduced below) amply validates the criticism that emanated from Israel.

In the paragraph below, Abbas does indeed speak of “non-violent popular resistance” but he simultaneously endorses the past violence of the PLO, to which he repeatedly refers:

“We will continue our legitimate national struggle, which is based on our right to defend ourselves and on non-violent popular resistance and political and legal struggle. We will work with needed patience, wisdom and courage to protect our people and our political and national achievements, which we have achieved after decades of hard work and persistence through a long path of martyrs, injured people and prisoners.”

He continues, describing this violence or terrorism as the “price of our freedom” which will soon come:

“It’s true that we paid a big price through the blood of our martyrs, the injured, the tears of our mothers and the pain of our prisoners. However, it’s the price of our freedom, which is around the corner…”

Abbas speaks of tearing up the Oslo Accords, the foundational agreement between the PLO and Israel allowing for Yasser Arafat’s return to Ramallah in 1993 from exile in Tunisia, which facilitates shared security measures (Article II), the transfer of taxes, water resources etc., to the new Palestinian Authority:

“We will together continue with you our national, political and legal struggle. We will not remain hostage to the agreements that are not respected by Israel, and we will continue to join the international organizations and treaties”

Abbas claims that Israel did not respect the Oslo Interim Accord, a view that he has often asserted. However, grave and longstanding breaches by the PLO undermine the notion that the terror group was ever serious about peace. An upsurge in terrorist attacks during the 90s undermined the possibility of final status negotiations. The newly established PA police force did not fulfil their security obligations under Oslo II, the PLO charter was not changed to recognise Israel (Article XXXI, section 9), nor were the undertakings to stop using paramilitary forces (Article XIV, section 3) and incitement to violence (Article XXII) upheld. Abbas also continues to breach the agreement with unilateral moves to achieve statehood without negotiation.

The speech ends with the threat of continued violence and an exhortation of those Arab-Palestinians involved in the violence and terrorist acts:

“Here, I invite you my great people, wherever you are, to, unite and be wary of the occupation schemes designed to abort and terminate our national project. We will never hesitate to defend our people and to protect them this is our right.

A tribute to the martyr’s… greetings to the wounded, greetings to the prisoners.”

In an earlier part of the speech, Abbas describes the conflict in apocalyptic terms, and blames Israel solely for the violence:

“The Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, land and holy places continues to escalate. The racist barbarism exacerbates the ugliness of the occupation, in a way that threatens peace and stability and the igniting of a religious conflict that would burn everything, not only in the region but perhaps the whole world. […]

We are clearly saying that we will not accept a change in the status quo of al-Aksa Mosque compound, as we will not allow any Israeli schemes aimed at compromising its holiness and Islamic identity to pass. It’s our exclusive right: for the Palestinians and Muslims everywhere in the world.

We are asking for our rights, justice and peace, we do not commit aggression on anyone and we do not accept aggression against our people, our nation and our holy places”

Abbas describes the clashes on the Temple Mount in purely defensive terms. When speaking of self-defence, Abbas is justifying such violence which, paradoxically, is seen in defensive fashion by many of the faithful within the Islamic world. Muslims have claimed that the Jewish people of Israel are attempting to destroy the al-Aqsa Mosque. This trend began in 1929 when the then-Mufti of Jerusalem incited genocide, leading to the mutilation and slaughter of many Jewish civilians, especially in Hebron – the second holiest city within the Jewish faith. Abbas’ audience would not be deaf to the power of his words, which he often reiterated, as for example in an October 8th statement:

"Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas says the Palestinians will not be 'dragged' into more violence with Israel, but says his people stand with those 'protecting Al-Aqsa mosque.'

Speaking to business leaders on Thursday in Ramallah Abbas says he is committed to 'peaceful popular resistance,' though he backs rioters who recently barricaded themselves inside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and clashed with Israeli police on the Temple Mount."

Whilst describing the clashes on the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif in defensive terms, he nonetheless reiterated in the October 14th speech that Muslims had sole rights over the contested religious site, asserting that “it’s our exclusive right: for the Palestinians and Muslims everywhere in the world.”

Abbas not only repeated the patently false charge that the Israeli State wished to change the status quo of the Temple Mount, a claim originating in the 1920s, which evolved after Israel retook East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War, an assertion that initiated the Autumn 2015 spate of violence (as well as the Second Intifada), he heightened the political temperature by falsely claiming that Israel was the aggressor of this violence, and that Israel is destroying homes - an action against the financial rewards provided by the Palestinian Authority for encouraging terrorism by providing substantial financial incentives.

Ahmed Manasra’s martyrdom

And yet the baleful quality of such sentiments was nothing new for Abbas – the section of his speech that caused real controversy was the claim that Israel murdered a youth called Ahmed Manasra:

“We will not give up to the logic of brute force, policies of occupation and aggression practiced by the Israeli government and the herd of settlers who are engaged in terrorism against our people, our holy places, our homes, our trees and the execution of our children in cold blood as they did with the child Ahmed Manasra and other children from Jerusalem.”

Ahmed Manasra is a thirteen-year-old Arab-Palestinian, who engaged in an indiscriminate stabbing spree with his fifteen-year-old brother in a Jewish neighbourhood of East Jerusalem called Pisgat Ze'ev, as vividly caught on CCTV footage. Manasrah stabbed a thirteen-year-old Israeli boy multiple times, rendering him clinically dead upon arrival at hospital. Abbas’ claim was easily refuted with the publication of an image of Manasrah recovering in an Israeli hospital after he was injured when struck by a car. Yet Abbas attempted to present the Arab-Palestinian teen who engaged in a particularly savage stabbing attack as a martyr akin to the falsified Mohammad al-Dura case, a hoax that has been used as a widespread source of incitement in the Arab-Islamic world.

A day before Abbas’ television speech, one of Abbas’ spokesmen also claimed Manasrah was executed and compared the youth with al-Dura:

“Presidential Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina stated that the execution of child Hassan Manasrah in front of the media, as child Muhammad Al-Dura was executed in the year 2000, is an abominable crime, and the legal, humanitarian and political responsibility for it is on the Israeli government.”

The fabrication seemed to work. Micah Halpern, of the New York Observer, noted the effect caused by this lie:

‘Mr. Abbas used expressions like “Israeli aggression” against the Palestinian people, their holy places and their homes. He spoke of the “executions of children like Ahmed Manasra.” He actually calls terrorists victims and heroes. And the Arabic press backs him up.

Here are two Arabic press news headlines. The first one reads: “Palestinian Child Bleeds to Death While Israeli Police and Civilians Watch, Shouting Insults.” The second reads: “Teen Shot by Israelis Stomped On, Left to Bleed to Death.”’

US news channel MSNBC reinforced Abbas’ account of Ahmed Manasra’s falsified martyrdom whilst Vice News minimised what was a particularly savage stabbing attack, by claiming that it was merely an attempted stabbing. However, controversy over Manasra’s would lead the PA to amend their translation of Abbas’ speech, which was changed to say that Manasra and other children were “shot at in cold blood.”

Words of defence as words of aggression

The very considerable divergence between the international media’s presentation of the October 14th speech, and its interpretation in both Israel and the Arab world, related to basic descriptions of the content of the speech and how Abbas’ claims ought to be understood in view of the ongoing conflict.

Abbas’ speech did not subtly suggest a de-escalation of violence, or express a favouring for non-violent methods. His call to action was starkly framed by images of Israeli aggression and murder, supposedly designed to prevent the basic rights of Arab-Palestinian people to live in their homes, to worship freely, and to achieve political freedom. How could the media justify describing the speech as endorsing non-violent methods to gain statehood? Perhaps because Abbas’ speeches use language that conjures up superficial notions of humanism. To analyse the first of two sentences most indicative peaceful intent:

“We are asking for our rights, justice and peace, we do not commit aggression on anyone and we do not accept aggression against our people, our nation and our holy places”

This sentence uses the noble words “peace” and “justice” but Abbas does not voice any criticism (however feeble) of the then-recent spate of Arab-Palestinian terror attacks against Jewish civilians. Instead Abbas claims that the Arab-Palestinian collective does not “commit aggression,” but rather that Israeli authorities and Jewish people living in Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank) are aggressing against them in the renewed violence. By contrast, when a reprisal attack occurred, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “strongly condemned the harming of innocent Arabs” and warned those resorting to violence would be brought to justice. The Western ideal of justice, with the iconic image of the scales of balance representing fairness, has no real meaning in Abbas’ world.

Abbas’ notion of “rights” is also problematic because it is politically loaded by decades of conflict-propaganda. The primary longstanding Arab-Palestinian demand is for the so-called “Right of Return”, which is couched in the language of human rights, even though it has no legal basis or moral justification – rather it is an effort to nullify Israel’s existence as a principally Jewish State through demographic means, despite being wholly incompatible with the longstanding "two states for two peoples" approach to the peace process.

The supposedly peaceful stance of sentence two reinforces the difficulties in the first quoted sentence:

“We will continue our legitimate national struggle, which is based on our right to defend ourselves and on non-violent popular resistance and political and legal struggle.”

This sentence talks of “non-violent popular resistance,” which likely refers to the wide-scale riotous violence which is typically described as “protest” by the media. Furthermore, the statement distinguishes between this form of action and the “right to defend ourselves.” Thus, AFP’s claim that Abbas "favours "peaceful, popular resistance" is clearly incorrect. He actually legitimised ongoing sectarian violence, which often targeted Jewish-Israeli civilians, as an inherent right of self-defence.

In a November 16th broadcast on PA television, Abbas explained his intent. He described the attacks as part of a “peaceful uprising” (seemingly because some of the attacks did not use military hardware), and admitted to calling for terror attacks:

“We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is. However, the aggression of firing bullets has come from the Israelis.”

A poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research also found that a majority of Arab-Palestinians believe that Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, supported the terror attacks.

When leaders express such obvious counterfactuals as the claim that the Arab-Palestinian collective “do not commit aggression on anyone,” then their statements must be treated with scepticism and be duly scrutinised. This ought to be deemed a significant ethical issue, particularly during a period of substantive conflict. Where there is a parallel endorsement of ongoing and prior acts of terrorism, it necessarily follows that the use of words like “peace,” “peaceful struggle,” and “defence” can only be legitimately viewed in propagandistic terms.

Lethal results

In keeping with Abbas’ description of Arab-Palestinian violence as defensive, whilst Israel and segments of the regional Jewish populace commit acts of aggression, an incendiary August 1st 2015 speechasserted that “the story of the [Jewish] Temple is… the greatest crime and forgery in history,” and as a means to allow the Jewish People to conquer historic Palestine and “get rid of the al-Aqsa [mosque].” In September Abbas spoke on a PA television channel, heaping blessings on the Murabitin/Murabitat (defenders or guardians of the faith), which the PA and Islamic Movement in Israel hired to harass non-Muslim visitors at the Temple Mount. He added these now-infamous words:

“we bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah. The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is ours, and they (the Jews) have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.”

These words were followed all too predictably by an intensified period of violence, with numerous Arab-Palestinian terrorists citing these very reasons for attempting to kill Israeli civilians or security personnel, for example, Muhannad Halabi, a nineteen-year-old university student, who murdered two Israelis and injured a further two, including a two-year-old. He wrote on a Facebook page:

“What is happening to al-Aqsa [mosque] is what is happening to our holy sites, and what is happening to the women of al-Aqsa [the Murabitat] is what is happening to our mothers and women. I don’t believe that our people will succumb to humiliation.”

Halabi decided to kill because he was outraged at the arrest of murabitat for abusing Temple Mount visitors, an act by the Israeli authorities that he characterised as aggressive, and as a “humiliation”. His parents would also praise their “martyred son” for “avenging” those of the Muslim faith on Temple Mount “against the impure enemies.”

Besides constituting one of many examples of the Islamist supremacism so defining this conflict, as forcefully reinforced by the tone of incitement during the period, the terrorist views his act as defensive, which the Arab-Palestinian authorities reinforce in conceptually bizarre ways. Thus, terrorists who attack, injure and/or kill are commonly described as defenceless when they themselves are killed in acts of self-defence, which is used to fuel further violent intent to attack Israeli civilians and/or security personnel.

This peculiar form of reasoning is founded on a century of Arab-Islamic rejectionism, based on the notion that the Jewish people have no right of self-determination in the region, regardless of how small the territory might be that they may possess. For example, the 1964 PLO Charter rejects UN Resolution 181 (Article 17: “The Partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false…”). In effect any violent response to Israel is an act of self-defence, while Abbas still refuses to accept the existence of Israel, especially as a Jewish state. This longstanding Arab-Palestinian perspective explains why so many perceive acts of aggression to be acts of defence. Article 15 of the PLO Charter (or ‘Palestinian National Charter’) makes it clear that war, violence and even terrorism against Israel is viewed in purely defensive terms:

“The liberation of Palestine, from an Arab viewpoint, is a national (qawmi) duty and it attempts to repel the Zionist and imperialist aggression against the Arab homeland, and aims at the elimination of Zionism in Palestine. Absolute responsibility for this falls upon the Arab nation––peoples and governments…”

It is quite clear that much of the lexicon of terms utilised by Arab-Palestinian leaders have been highly distorted by conflict-propaganda, and so these terms should be understood differently to that of their commonly understood usage. This fact would not come as a surprise to seasoned journalists familiar with the effects of incitement. However, after the major upsurge in violence, with various Fatah leaders and spokesmen celebrating and endorsing such acts of terror, the regional mainstream media bureaux did not read Abbas’ 14th October speech with any level of scepticism. The PA president is rarely presented as anything other than a moderate politician by the media, a peacemaker who doesn’t have a partner for peace with a supposedly-intransigent Israel.

Over a period of months, the mainstream media would continue to present the surge in Arab-Palestinian violence as a despairing response to failed peace efforts, rather than as a consequence of Islamist supremacism and/or extreme nationalism. Some media experts even believe that religious sectarianism etc. is irrelevant when attempting to explain this violence, contenting themselves by reiterating Arab-Palestinian talking points.

And yet surveys demonstrate that Arab-Palestinian society continues to believe that the al-Aqsa compound is in grave danger, despite the fact that the site has been in Israel’s possession for nearly half a century, and continue to favour the elimination of Israel, which would be replaced by a nation where Jewish people would not share equal rights with Arabs.





Published at the New English Review.

A Betrayal of Both Christians and Jews: Pope Francis’ Visit to the “State of Palestine”

Pope Francis at the security barrier in Bethlehem, 25th May 2014 (MaanImages).

During Pope Francis’ May 25th/26th visit to Israel, and the territory administered by the Palestinian Authority (PA), he called for a “state of Palestine” to be fully established.

A diplomatic shift

In contrast to his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John-Paul II, the current pontiff displayed a notable degree of support for the Arab-Palestinian cause, with a number of significant gestures.

Last month, Pope Francis broke with tradition by announcing the decision to hold the principle prayer service of the visit in the PA administered town of Bethlehem, rather than that of Jerusalem, and, notably, in the presence of President Mahmoud Abbas. Likewise, travelling to Bethlehem from Jordan was deemed a diplomatic coup for the PA.

Pope Francis addressed Mahmoud Abbas, in his speech at the Palestinian Authority’s ‘presidential palace’ in Bethlehem:

"Mr President, you are known as a man of peace and a peacemaker. Our recent meeting in the Vatican and my presence today in Palestine attest to the good relations existing between the Holy See and the State of Palestine. I trust that these relations can further develop for the good of all."

Pope Francis’ description of Abbas as a “man of peace” was notable, in view of the Palestinian Authority’s problematic role in the peace-process, in which they appear to have planned a series of unilateral moves, with the intention of undermining the negotiation frameworks, and having reconciled with Hamas, an entity still dedicated to Israel’s annihilation by means of terrorism.

If the pontiff’s speech can be interpreted in diplomatic terms, his use of conciliatory language toward the Palestinian Authority, contrasts with a degree of criticism aimed at Israel. He may lay blame at the door of Israel for the failure of the recent US-sponsored peace process. He repeated his support for “the right of the Palestinian people to a sovereign homeland,” when he met Israeli President Shimon Peres, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, during the subsequent Israeli leg of his journey.

Pope Francis did not direct demands of a similar nature at Mahmoud Abbas. For example, an equivalent request for Arab-Palestinians to afford recognition of Israel as a principally Jewish state, as per the established approach of "two states for two peoples," was not forthcoming.

Whilst Pope Francis acknowledged the need for Israel to live in security, he described this desirable condition as necessarily being “within internationally recognised borders,” a diplomatic code for a call on Israel to retreat to its 1949-67 Armistice Lines, known as the “Auschwitz Borders,” a term coined by Abba Eban, due to their near-indefensibly.

Pope Francis went further by inviting both Abbas and Shimon Peres to the Vatican for a meeting. Such a move was surprising, since Peres’ role as president is largely ceremonial, having little to do with the peace process. It would have been more meaningful to invite Netanyahu but Abbas would have likely refused, given his notable reluctance to talk peace. In view of Peres’ softer stance on Palestinianism, extending an invite to this politician could possibly serve as a useful propaganda initiative for Abbas.

In what was a carefully choreographed visit, an invite excluding Netanyahu may also be construed as a sharp diplomatic snub to both the politician himself and the government that he leads.

Pope Francis’ diplomatic moves lend substantive credence to a report from December 2013, in which it was stated that Abbas requested the Pope show diplomatic favour to the Arab-Palestinian cause during his visit. Clearly the Vatican’s promise of a religious politically non-partisan visit was never a realistic prospect.

A soft stance on terrorism

Pope Francis’ reputedly unscheduled visit to the walled area of the barrier fence in Bethlehem, which divides much of Judea and Samaria (AKA the ‘West Bank’) from the rest of Israel, drew substantive international attention. To quote the Bloomberg news agency:

"The pontiff leaned his head against a section of the barrier, which had “Free Palestine” and “Apartheid Wall” spray-painted on it and was located near an Israeli military watchtower."

In a carefully planned visit, this prayer at such a politically photogenic location was a surprisingly strong signal of the Vatican’s support for the Arab-Palestinian cause. The Security Barrier is a widely used anti-Israel propaganda motif, one that is commonly directed at Christian audiences.

Arutz Sheva reported:

'The pope also paused for several moments in front of a graffiti on the security wall in Bethlehem, bowing his head in prayer in front of a message proclaiming, "Pope we need to see someone to speak about justice. Bethlehem look like Warsaw ghetto. Free Palestine."'

Although one representative claimed the Pope’s prayer at the wall was an unplanned “personal decision,” the move was very much in keeping with the intentionally strong pro-Palestinian tone of the visit. The charged political significance of the act was likely known to both the Pope and the Vatican.

Despite the Pope’s subsequent criticism of the Holocaust, during his visit to the Yad Vashem Museum, his willingness to pray beside a propagandistically lucrative message, equivocating Bethlehem with the Warsaw Ghetto, is deeply troubling.

Israel's security barrier was largely responsible for stopping the Second Intifada, in which terrorists used areas, such as Bethlehem, to cross into Israel. The Intifada led to the death of 1,148 Israelis the great majority of which were Jewish civilians, along with many thousands of other less fatal casualties, including 6,000 wounded in nearby Jerusalem. The rate of killing decreased dramatically after the erection of the security barrier – a fact even terrorists themselves conceded.

Thus, such a gesture was particularly insensitive, coming just a day after two Israeli civilians were gunned down in an anti-Semitic terrorist incident in Belgium.

In retrospect, the portents leading to the Pope’s gesture were significant. Ahead of the Papal visit, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, argued that:

"On the one hand, Israel's right to exist in peace and security within internationally recognized boundaries. And the Palestinian people's right to have a homeland, sovereign and independent, the right to move around freely, the right to live in dignity."

The strength of this stance, with its emphasis on Arab-Palestinian rights, is notable. Parolin criticised Israel even within his assertion of the Jewish State’s right to a secure existence. It would seem Israel only has a right to a peaceful existence within some normative concept of “internationally recognized boundaries.” This can be construed as an indirect legitimisation of terrorism, both past and present.

Thus, the Vatican’s position was not one of balance, as presented, but rather a hierarchy of rights. One right (Palestinian statehood) is more important than that of the opposing need (safety of Jewish civilians). Ahead of the visit, the Vatican’s programme described Mahmoud Abbas as the president of the “State of Palestine,” thereby demonstrating what little regard the Vatican has toward the negotiation of statehood in exchange for an authentic peace.

During his visit, the Pope condemned vandalism reputedly caused by Jewish settlers, while making no reference to the more lethal violence visited upon these people. A close friend of the Pontiff asserted that he wished to cast himself as the “Che Guevera of the Palestinians,” and would support their “struggle” during his visit. Che Guevera was a noted terrorist, who sought a nuclear confrontation at the Bay of Pigs.

Opportunities for incitement

Notably, the papal visit was used to illicit very familiar hate motifs. According to Arutz Sheva, Abbas accused Israel of:

"… systematically acting to change [Jerusalem's] identity and character, and strangling the Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims, with the aim of pushing them out."

Such a charge constitutes incitement, its theme associated with common allegations that Israel is trying to take over the Temple Mount, an accusation which is often met with lethal violence.

The Pope was also presented with reproductions of great European works of art, largely with Christian themes, albeit crassly modified for the purposes of Arab-Palestinian propaganda. Christian themed incitement featured, with Jesus yet again being presented as an Arab-Palestinian Shahid or martyr, with its overt terrorist connotations. One of the works at the exhibit, based upon Raphael’s The Deposition (1507), evoked the old Christian belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, a notion that was used historically to justify genocidal anti-Semitic violence. However, the dead Jesus being carried to his tomb was substituted with that of the corpse of an Arab-Palestinian.

Likewise, Abbas asserted, in the Pontiff’s presence, that the murder of Israeli citizens by Arab-Palestinians should not be deemed a punishable crime, a remarkable statement that he has made on previous occasions.

In such a context, the Pope’s vocal support for Abbas at the very same platform, and his dramatic, and potentially historic, gesture at the security barrier, could well develop into a deep diplomatic wedge between Israel and the Vatican, after the improvements brought about with Pope John-Paul II’s historic visit in 2000. The following day, an unscheduled visit at amemorial for Israeli civilians murdered by terrorists, was seen as a placatory gesture aimed at the Israeli government.

However, the final day of the Pontiff’s visit was also tainted by his meeting with Grand Mufti Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, on the Temple Mount. Two years ago, the Mufti preached that Muslims are destined to kill Jews. He also said that the souls of suicide bombers “tell us to follow in their path.”

Arab-Palestinian Christians

President Mahmoud Abbas took the opportunity to use the visit to criticise Israel for the plight of Arab-Palestinian Christians, blaming the Jewish State for their emigration from the area in more recent times.

As would be expected, Abbas made no mention of religious persecution being a substantive cause for the exodus of Christians from Bethlehem, and other areas administered by the Palestinian Authority. Conditions for Christians worsened soon after the PA gained control of the region, under the 1995 Oslo II Accords. In 1997 the PLO evicted monks and nuns from a noted monastery in Hebron, intimidated Christian converts, and opened fire on a group in the Christian town of Beit Sahur. Most recently, on the 6th of May 2014, a Muslim mob stoned Christians at a church in Bethlehem, during their annual celebration of the feast of St. George, their patron saint.

Perhaps the violent occupation and desecration of Bethlehem’s famous Church of the Nativity, by over a hundred PLO/PA terrorists during the Second Intifada, represents the most infamous incident to date, for these aggressors used the site to defame Israel internationally. Up to sixty monks, nuns and priests were held hostage by the PLO but Yasser Arafat, the then leader of the PA and PLO, successfully presented the Jewish State as an aggressor against the Christian community, when the IDF made efforts to extract the terrorists from the site. It was an example of the PLO’s use of Christian areas to aggress against Israeli civilians, full in the knowledge that IDF military operations would have to be conducted in these areas to suppress insurgent activity.

The security barrier put an end to the use of Bethlehem as a base for terrorist strikes. Beit Jalla, a neighbouring Christian enclave, was also used for sniper attacks upon civilian residents of the Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo. Yet Pope Francis attacked the very presence of a structure that played a vital role in creating a safer environment for Christians. Thus, his move was a betrayal of Christian interests.

Pope Francis, not only remained silent about the persecution of Christians, he inverted reality by stating their contribution was “significant and valued” despite being a religious minority in the region. The statement may be deemed troublingly uninformed, in view of substantive Christian oppression in the Islamic Middle East today.

Pope Francis’ Bethlehem wall of prayer conduct sharply counteracts the controversial widely discussed views of Christy Anastas, a Christian native of Bethlehem, who spoke out strongly in favour of Israel’s security barrier. Her expressed opinions led to an intensive campaign of intimidation and boycott against her family, who are still living in the area. The irony of this intimidation is stark, in view of the fact that her parents have long campaigned against Israel at international forums.

The treatment of the Anastas family is representative of the deteriorating conditions for Christians in the region, where there is considerable pressure for them to toe-the-line politically, against Zionism. Such discriminatory pressure is often exerted by officials within the Palestinian Authority itself.

If the plight of the Christians of the region has a substantive moral lesson, it would likely be that they cannot appease their present-day Islamist neighbours sufficiently. Attacking Israel, whilst staying silent on their own ill-treatment, is ultimately not enough to obtain peaceable co-existence in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, Pope Francis’ actions will likely serve to undermine the importance of independent voices, like Anastas and other Arab-Palestinian Christians. It stands as a double-wrong to not only maintain silence on an issue that needs to be addressed desperately, but to actively assist those who are involved in perpetuating an almost universally accepted narrative that fabricates the major cause of the deteriorating conditions of the people he represents, in spirit if not always in actuality due to the great diversity of Christian denominations. Moreover, the very actors he assists are also substantively responsible for directly causing the very conditions of intolerance that so harms those the Pontiff purports to represent. These actions serve the propagandistic efforts of those that not only care little for the welfare of this struggling community, they benefit greatly from a news black-out on its oppression.





Also published at the New English Review.

Déjà Vu: Reuters’ Fabricated Facts; John Kerry’s Abject Dishonesty

John Kerry, Secretary of State, United States of America

An excellent article by John Podhoretz of the New York Post, on the folly of John Kerry’s recent attack on Israel, rightly describes Kerry’s behaviour as “contemptible”, and at substantive variance with very obvious truths. Past evidence demonstrates that Kerry’s modus operandi was always likely to be thus.

Along with arguably deceptive behaviour, which undermined trust, Kerry went as far as to threaten Israel with a Third Intifada, perhaps forgetting his role as an intermediary. It is surely a testament to Israel’s desperation for a solution, and its extreme willingness to keep the US happy, that it went along with such an overtly prejudicial “peacemaker”, whose bullying went as far to incite an Arab-Palestinian terrorist revolt!

Kerry’s criticisms have been carried by the International media without critique, and, of course, substantively focused on settlement construction, despite these being areas that are to be retained in any envisaged two-state peace agreement. Meanwhile, Abbas’ refusal to acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity, his continued insistence upon a ‘right of return’, which would of course nullify Israel’s existence, and his refusal to even commit to an end of the conflict, is somehow unworthy of substantive criticism!

Reuters on settlement construction

Kerry’s remarks were reinforced in numerous media reports, with particular reference to data released by the Israeli governmental authority, the ‘Central Bureau of Statistics’. Their report last month, which gained international coverage, noted that settlement construction, in Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank), and East Jerusalem, increased by 123 or 124 percent in 2013, compared to that of 2012.

The data was of course a gift to both the Palestinian Authority and an assortment of anti-Israel NGO’s, with the timing of the announcement used to undermine a critical meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama, despite the fact that the percentage increase merely reflects a movement from the lowest average construction rate since the 1990’s.

Of particular note is a prominent claim that the move to increase settlement construction began during face-to-face peace talks. A typically prejudicial Reuters article, entitled “Israeli minister urges Netanyahu to annex settlements”, by one Crispian Balmer, notes that:

“Settlements have been a constant source of aggravation between Israelis and Palestinians, with construction of new Jewish homes in the West Bank rising 123 percent year-on-year in 2013, a surge that coincided with the resumption of talks.”

However, the Central Bureau of Statistics’, upon which Crispian Balmer relied for his percentile claim, noted that the increase in settlement construction began in the earliest months of 2013, prior to the resumption of talks. Face to face talks began in August 2013, after Israel agreed to the release 104 pre-Oslo prisoners, guilty of some of the most heinous acts of murder.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the Central Bureau of Statistics’ data affirms that:

“full recovery did not occur until 2013, due in part to the authorization of new housing tenders in West Bank settlements. In the first quarter of that year, ground was broken in West Bank settlements for 970 new homes. Since then, there has been a marked decline, with 736 housing starts in the second quarter of 2013, followed by 592 new units in the third quarter and 238 in the fourth quarter”

Clearly the figures demonstrate that construction slowed quite dramatically as the talks began, with a reduction of almost 40 percent from the early 2013 rate. As talks continued into the final quarter of the year, the rate of new homes reduced to a quarter of the early 2013 figure. Surely this is significant?

Interestingly, shortly before talks began, the media made a fuss that Israel was publishing plans for new housing units. Netanyahu refused demands for a total settlement freeze. However, this rejection was not utilised to undermine the talks but more likely to keep the pro-settler elements within Netanyahu’s coalition happy. A compromise solution was offered, whereby the housing rate would be reduced substantially. Israel also agreed to US demands for an informal freeze outside the larger settlement blocks. These conditions appear to have been met.

The data presented by the Central Bureau of Statistics does not undermine any notion that Netanyahu genuinely wished for the talks to succeed. In fact, it indicates that a substantive cut in construction was used to appease Arab-Palestinian demands. Unfortunately, this would never be enough for Palestinian Authority, just as anything other than complete submission to these demands would not appease Kerry.

For further reading on the prevalent bias at Reuters see Something is rotten in Reuters.

Article also published at Crethi Plethi.

Would UN Palestinian Statehood destroy any chance of an equitable peace?

After recent suggestions that Mahmud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, was wavering over a planned request for the UN to recognise a Palestinian state, he has affirmed that he will go ahead when scheduled to address the UN General Assembly on the 23^rd of September. Such a move is expected to cause an environment of intensified strife.

Abbas said he wished to see a Palestinian state recognised on the basis of the 1949 Armistice Lines, which the international media incorrectly labels as the 1967 lines. This would comprise the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Gaza, occupied by Jordan and Egypt respectively between 1948/9 and 1967. Previously these territories were administered by the Ottoman Empire and latterly the British Mandate.

Although the US is expected to veto the application for full state membership at the UN Security Council, non-member state recognition would probably pass at the UN General Assembly due to the power of the Arab/Islamic (OIC) voting block which typically gets the support of the somewhat leftist third-world Non-Aligned Movement voting bloc that represents a majority of nations within the UN, and has displayed a consistent bias against Israel.

Whether or not recognition of a Palestinian state would be inimical to the peace process, the benefits to the Palestinian cause would be significant. The Palestinian Authority is expected to get a huge majority in the General Assembly and it will appear as a significant diplomatic victory. Recognition will also aid pro-Palestinian groups. Their incessant condemnation of Israel will gain more apparent legitimacy.

UN state recognition, even where no sovereign governing body or borders exist, would allow access to other international bodies, such as the ICC (International Criminal Court), from where the notional State could sue Israel, bringing the common Palestinian lawfare tactic to a new level of intensity.

Although this Palestinian State would only exist on paper, it would still have the capacity to sign treaties with fully fledged nations, which would add to its perceived legitimacy. Many states (e.g. Arab and South American) that already adopt a strong pro-Palestinian line would queue up to offer support. This may in turn pressure the US to give it greater recognition as a full member of the UN over time.

Efforts to dissuade the request for UN state recognition

Generally speaking the path being taken by the Palestinian Authority is seen negatively by the US, the EU and some other interested parties, albeit for differing reasons.

The United States has threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if it brings the request to the Security Council but it is unlikely for the US to do so as it would merely reinforce criticism that it display favouritism toward Israel, thus undermining their position as an honest broker in the conflict.

Although the PA have been talking about making this request for almost a year, it does not appear as if the US has attempted to form a strong coalition of allies on the Security Council against the proposal because they appear to be the only member of the Council that has stated it will exercise a veto.

There have been reservations expressed by parties on the Palestinian side too. Both Jordan and Hamas have expressed reservations but the risks to the Palestinian Authority appear to be minimal. One Hamas spokesman said that the result will be “cosmetic, especially when Mahmoud Abbas said his aim is to return to the negotiations with the occupation [i.e. Israel] after all.”

The Quartet on the Middle East, comprising of Russia, the US, EU and UN, are also seeking persuade the PA to stop the statehood bid. Tony Blair, an envoy for the Quartet, stated that they were seeking some sort of mid-way compromise:

The Palestinians are here at the UN now, so the question is … can people find a way that enables the Palestinians to take a significant step forward to statehood at the same time as not ending up in a situation where the UN replaces negotiations?

The European response has been mixed. The President of the European Parliament said the EU does not oppose such a move even if “unilateral declarations or decisions are not the best solution…” German Chancellor Angela Merkel is against recognition of a Palestinian state outside of negotiations, whilst French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated France will recognise a Palestinian state if talks are not established.

The European Union tried to avert conflict at the UN by attempting to renew talks within a short period of time but diplomats stated that the long-standing disagreements over the terms of reference prevented such a move which seems to be is diplomatic speak for Abbas refusing to return to negotiations without a suspension of construction in the settlements and Jerusalem. Since talks would or have failed to get off the ground, the EU also suggested that the Palestinians accept a lesser upgrade to their status at the United Nations. However, without any firm reason to drop the bid for full statehood, which carries richer diplomatic rewards, Abbas is unlikely to accept the offer.

In June France proposed a conference to establish parameters for a resumption of negotiations for similar reasons but was met with disinterest, for which Israel was criticised. However, Nabil Shaath, Fatah’s head of foreign relations, asserted in Lebanon that the PA would not accept the French approach of two states for two peoples.

[The French initiative] reshaped the issue of the “Jewish state” into a formula that is also unacceptable to us — two states for two peoples. They can describe Israel itself as a state for two peoples, but we will be a state for one people. The story of “two states for two peoples” means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this…

Dubious legal foundations

Palestine’s status at the UN is currently defined as an “entity” that has observer status with the right to speak at General Assembly meetings, participate in some votes etc.

The Palestinian position is that almost 20 years of occasional talks on statehood have hit a dead end for reasons such as Israel’s refusal to stop settlement construction s in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

However, the path of unilateral action seems to challenge some basic principles of the peace process, including all the internationally accepted frameworks for peace, such as UN Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973), which advocate agreed solutions of the conflict rather than unilateral actions.

The Oslo Interim Agreement of 1995 (also known as Oslo II), to which both parties signed, prohibits unilateral action by either side. Article XXXI states:

Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.

The PA is in breach of the agreement by demanding a suspension of settlement construction prior to resuming talks because final status issues are to be discussed directly as stated in Article XXXI. Moreover Israel’s powers in the relevant zone of its jurisdiction (Area C) weren’t limited in this regard according to Alan Baker, who assisted in negotiating and drafting the Oslo Accords:

… the two sides agreed in the 1995 Interim Agreement… on a division of their respective jurisdictions in the West Bank into areas A and B (Palestinian jurisdiction) and area C (Israeli jurisdiction). They defined the respective powers and responsibilities of each side in the areas they control. Israel’s powers and responsibilities in Area C include all aspects regarding its settlements — all this pending the outcome of the Permanent Status negotiations. This division was accepted and agreed upon by the Palestinians…

The main proponent orchestrating the settlement issue over the years has been the Palestinian leadership, which has decided to isolate and take up the issue of settlements as an independent “cause célèbre,” despite the fact that it is among the agreed-upon items to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians in the Permanent Status negotiations.

A common Palestinian line justifying the UN bid refers to the “1967 borders” as the just boundaries of their new state, and cite UN Security Council Resolution 242. However, the 1967 borders are in fact the armistice lines that lasted from 1949 to 1967. They were never designated as permanent boundaries by any party. Rather it was an interim cease-fire line to do expressly the opposite as Article 2.2 of the 1949 Jordanian-Israeli agreement attests:

It is also recognized that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

The fact that the Arab parties in the conflict insisted that the 1949 Armistice lines (Green Line) would have no political significance results in it not having the status of being a true international border. It is worthwhile to add that today many countries, for example numerous states in South America, affirm recognition of a Palestinian state on those very lines. In contrast, UN Resolution 242 (1967) recognises the present Israeli lines as borders until such time as a peace deal is achieved. 242 does not call for full withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 borders despite continual claims to the contrary. As Eugene Rostow, one of the authors of the Resolution, pointed out the wording refers to withdrawal not from “all territories” but unspecified territories whilst ensuring Israeli security. Resolutions that sought withdrawal from all territories were repeatedly rejected at the UN.

Lord Caradon, British Ambassador to the UN at the time and the primary author of Resolution 242, along with Arthur J. Goldberg, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN and another contributor to the text, both asserted that Resolution 242 did not demand Israel to return to the 1949 lines. Goldberg stated:

And it can be inferred from the incorporation of the words secure and recognized boundaries that the territorial adjustments to be made by the parties in their peace settlements could encompass less than a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied territories.

Resolution 242 also stated that all states should have “secure and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force”, and that only negotiation can establish such boundaries.

The mandate established by the League of Nations made it legal for Jews to settle anywhere in Palestine, which nullifies any issue of illegality over settlements if they are voluntary. Article 80 of the UN does not allow the institution to hand over any territory appertaining to the Mandate unless Israel, being the representative of the Jewish people agrees

Except as may be agreed upon in individual trusteeship agreements, made under Articles 77, 79, and 81, placing each territory under the trusteeship system, and until such agreements have been concluded, nothing in this Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.

Consequently, it seems that the efforts to establish a Palestinian state at the UN may in fact be illegal.

An excellent video by Give Peace A Chance covers legality issues.

Probable effects on the Peace Process

Aside from the occasional often ill-judged initiative, the peace process initiated almost 20 years ago has in essence stalled. Whilst many pro-Palestinians pretend Israel is solely to blame for this problem the reality is different. The real issue is whether or not recognition of a Palestinian state will become an impediment to the rather faint prospect of peace down the road. The answer is a very definite “yes”.

Abbas insisted in his announcement that UN recognition would then enable the Palestinians to return to negotiations with Israel. This view seems quite absurd considering the fact that every Israeli prime minister has had an open door policy toward negotiations almost continually for two decades.

The reality is that UN recognition would give the Palestinians considerably greater power in negotiations, tipping the balance very much in their favour. Abbas more or less said so in as many words himself:

Negotiations, no matter how difficult, will be between one state and another…. But we will have obtained the world’s recognition that our state is occupied and that our land is occupied and not disputed territory, as the Israeli government claims.

Having a recognised state will dramatically reduce any incentive to compromise because Israel’s ability to trade territory in exchange for a peaceful solution will be lost. Discussion of land swaps, which were a big part of the 2000 Camp David talks, and the Olmert-Abbas talks in 2008, will also be out because the territory of this notional Palestinian State will be set in stone more so than before.

The Jerusalem Question

Critically the Palestinians would probably insist on possessing all of East Jerusalem when Arafat had agreed in principle to allowing the Jewish neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem to remain within Israel.

Any talks would also lead to a cast iron demand that the Palestinians possess the Temple Mount or Haram, which was the primary reason for Arafat walking out of Camp David over a shared sovereignty proposal. Al Jazeera and the Guardian had lambasted Abbas for even considering an independent consortium to decide the issue in the Palestine Papers controversy that they mocked up with selective leaks in January of this year to harm and perhaps destroy the PA.

Conceding absolute sovereignty to the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall would be near impossible for Israel in the aftermath of the 1948-49 war, where the majority Jewish population was expelled from East Jerusalem, their religious sites desecrated and destroyed. Jordan banned Jews from access to East Jerusalem. That of course included the Temple Mount, which is Judaism’s holiest site, and the adjacent Wailing Wall, its last standing remnant. Indeed a few Palestinian commentators have acknowledged abandoning the site would fatally undermine the Zionist movement since Zion/Tzion equals Jerusalem.

Palestinian leaders and academics systematically deny the extraordinary historic connection between Jerusalem and the Jews. In 1967, Israel agreed to allow the Muslim Waqf to manage the Temple Mount area, with a view toward preventing religious conflict, even at the expense of Jews who are banned from worshipping at the Temple Mount itself! The considerable effort to maintain religious tolerance has never been properly recognised, and has not been remotely reciprocated. Conspiracist plots are repeatedly invented claiming that Israel seeks to harm the Al-Aqsa Mosque, as a method of incitement.

The PA has maintained the propaganda campaign that disassociates the Temple Mount from any connection with Judaism, and sources claim they intend to hand over control of the holy site to the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Co-operation).

This unfortunate contempt, which even the supposedly the moderate Palestinian Authority display, cannot give the Israeli authorities any faith that a deal respecting Jewish places of worship would be carried out in good faith by the Palestinians. For example, last month the Palestinian Authority TV channel broadcast a documentary that stated they plan to build a Palestinian residential area in place of the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem.

They [Israelis] know for certain that our [Palestinian] roots are deeper than their false history. We, from the balcony of our home, look out over [Islamic] holiness and on sin and filth [image of Jews' praying at the Western Wall] in an area that used to have [Arab] people and homes. We are drawing our new maps. When they [Israelis] disappear from the picture, like a forgotten chapter in the pages of our city’s history, we will build it anew [a residential area]. The Mughrabi Quarter will be built here [on the Western Wall Plaza].

The Palestinian Authority has an intensely disrespectful attitude toward the connection of the Jewish faith to Jerusalem. UN recognition of a Palestinian State on pre-1967 Jordanian lines would make it considerably more difficult for Israel to ensure safety of Jewish sites and possess the right to worship at them. If Islamists like Hamas were to take a greater role, which is entirely possible, agreements would be torn up and the stance of the Palestinians toward these Jewish sites could be intensely destructive.

The effects of state recognition on the right-of-return issue

UN recognition of a Palestinian state would give a greater capacity for moral posturing if and when the PA inevitably walk away from talks since Israel will be unable to offer the so-called “right to return”.

The UNRWA, which administers the Palestinian refugees, is a remarkable institution. It is separate from UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, dedicated to aiding all other refugees in the world. In contrast to the UNHCR, the UNRWA has a uniquely liberal definition of that category, which included short-term migrant workers of which there was a substantial influx prior to Israel’s formation. Remarkably it includes the later generations of the original refugees, which has resulted in some five to six million people today.

Israel’s current population consists of almost 6 million Jews and 1.4 million Arabs. Consequently the right of return, which the PA never gave up on (contrary to Al Jazeera’s claims during the Palestine Papers controversy), would subsume the Jewish identity of the State of Israel, which was the cause of conflict with the Arab Islamic world in the first instance. Thus it is seen as an effort to destroy Israel.

Jordan has made attempts to persuade the Palestinian Authority to abandon UN recognition, based especially on Palestinian interests, by claiming that such a bid carries the risk of damaging the PA’s ability to seek the “right of return,” but with the UN decidedly on the side of the Palestinians, such an eventuality seems relatively unlikely.

Maen Areikat, the PLO emissary to the United States recently stated that a future Palestinian state should be free of Jews which mirrors a commonly held view that a Palestinian state should effctively be judenrein. The irony of this view is indeed stark. Israel absorbed most of the Jews that were expelled from the Arab world. Now it must take in not only the Jewish settlers that won’t be tolerated in a Palestinian state but six million Palestinians as well on top of the existing Arab populace!

The involvement of Hamas

State Recognition will be given to the Palestinian Authority while in a loose partnership with Hamas. This coalition government was formed in May to present a united front. However, Hamas opposes any peaceful resolution, the existence of Israel and advocates the genocide of Jews the world over. At one time there was a sharp contrast between Hamas and Fatah/PLO but this move may over time increase the radicalism within the PA, whilst increasing the creeping international legitimisation of Hamas.

Contrary to what apologists keep asserting, Hamas’ stance with regard to Israel’s existence has not softened. For example, the organisation’s foreign minister, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, asserted a month and a half ago that Hamas would view any Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, or agreement with the Palestinian Authority, as only a ‘first stage’ towards the destruction of Israel in its entirety. Children are also a long-term component in this vision:

At this moment in time, we say to you, first of all: We want Palestine in its entirety – so there will not be any misunderstandings. If our generation is unable to achieve this, the next one will, and we are raising our children on this. Palestine means Palestine in its entirety, and Israel cannot exist in our midst.

Some conclusions

The Palestinian bid for statehood breaks numerous commitments since 1993 with the signing of the Oslo accords. Effectively Abbas is pursuing a Palestinian state without having to pay the heavy price of truly recognising Israel. Ironically enough, a Palestinian people unwilling to accept peace with Israel is the cost of decades of incitement against the state as a recent poll forcefully indicates.

It is likely but not a given that the UN General Assembly resolution will be passed because although many countries speak up for a Palestinian state based on the 1949-67 borders, numerous commentators have been saying it will lead to a great deal of Palestinian violence in the spirit of 2011 Nabka Day.

That combined with the Hamas-Fatah union, which may be a strategic error for Abbas, has given the impression that some members of the UN may be afraid of voting in a resolution that could incur a Third Intifada. Indeed it may not be a coincidence that Abbas stressed that any protests in support of the UN bid should not turn violent which would be embarrassing. It does seem likely that the endeavour will spark more conflict.

Does it really matter if UN state recognition will destroy any chance of a meaningful peace settlement? The reality certainly seems to be that the PA doesn’t seek peace, and as if to reinforce that point, Abbas said there was no alternative options the Palestinians could pursue if the bid for UN recognition ends in failure, unlikely as that will be.

There is indeed a reason that even the moderate PA has continuously denied Israel’s right to exist for example to quote one of many examples from the Al-Hayat Al-Jadida PA Newspaper:

Manal Taha, one of the organizers of the event… [said that Israel's aim is] to threaten the resolve within the occupying entity, which continues through the actions of the authorities in Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, Jerusalem, and other occupied Palestinian cities. … Taha called upon everyone to participate in this activity, whose aim is to energize the connection between the Palestinians of the territories occupied in 1948 and [those in] the territories occupied in 1967.

Another example is a narrator in PA TV broadcast addressing Israelis, and asking them to leave, because Israel has no right to exist:

Where are you [Israelis] from? Where are you from? Where are you from? Of course, you’re from Ukraine; of course, you’re from Germany, from Poland, from Russia, from Ethiopia, the Falasha (pejorative for Ethiopian Jews). Why have you stolen my homeland and taken my place? Please, I ask of you, return to your original homeland, so that I can return to my original homeland. This is my homeland; go back to your homeland!

Israel, the US and other sectors of the international community are opposed to the Palestinian move at the UN. The truth remains that a true Palestinian state can only be created through direct negotiations.

The founding a Palestinian state is not remotely the root issue of the conflict. The idea has been fully accepted by Israel subject to the negotiations process. Peace is the issue and it will only come with a mutual recognition of each party’s conflicting rights. UN recognition would ignore Israel’s concerns over security, and recognition by its long standing opponent as the national home of the Jewish people. Thus this one-sided UN bid will simply snuff out an already extremely fragile movement toward peace.


Ps. Aish offers a humorous account of the UN bid.


This article is also posted on the Crethi Plethi website.

Survey: Palestinian Extremism Alive and Well in 2011

With The Palestinian Authority seeking UN recognition of a Palestinian state this month in New York, it is worth reflecting upon whether acceptance will be a move toward peace or would intensify conflict.

One critical factor, too often overlooked in the conflict, is the opinion of Arab-Palestinian people themselves. Two months ago high profile polster and leading US Democratic Party strategist, Stanley Greenberg, conducted a survey in conjunction with the Israel Project and the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion. The poll involved over 1,000 Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.

Despite spin to the contrary, the Poll actually demonstrates that Palestinian extremism is as intensive as ever. It starkly illustrated that majority opinion amongst ordinary Palestinians on the extermination of the Jews is problematic. 73% of the Palestinians polled agree with Article Seven of Hamas’ Charter calling for the mass genocide of Jews.

… the Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah’s promise whatever time it might take. The prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree.

The survey found that 61% of Palestinians reject the firmly established approach of a two-state solution to peace. Remarkably 92% said Jerusalem should solely be the capital of Palestine, with a mere 3% stating that the city should be the capital shared by both states. There were some positives with 83% saying that job creation should be a high priority of the Palestinian Authority. However, extremism was clearly the order of the day with no less than 62% asserting it was morally right to kidnap IDF soldiers.

Such sentiments will come as no surprise to many that appreciate the complexity of the Middle East, beyond the largely pro-Palestinian line taken by the mainstream international media, and the intensive campaigning which portrays Israel as the aggressor. Polls through the years have demonstrated that the great majority of Palestinians wouldn’t welcome peace. Similarly Hamas was elected in Gaza in 2006 on an explicit mandate of continuing conflict with Israel.

This extremism is linked with the common religious fervour displayed through much of the Islamic world, especially in the Middle East. For example, a Pew poll some months ago showed that 84% of Egyptians advocated death for leaving the Islamic faith, a remarkable view in what is supposedly one of the more moderate Islamic nations. There were similar results in Jordan (Palestine). To many Muslims Israel’s very existence is objectionable partly due to Dar al-Islam (House of Islam), a notion central to the faith.

This unique trait of Palestinian/Arabic culture is displayed all too clearly in disturbing material taken from Palestinian sources. Below are examples that demonstrate the religious dimension of the conflict.

A clip taken from The Palestinian Authority TV channel featuring Palestinians advocating the murder of Jews, very much redolent of the Hamas Charter.

A Friday Sermon at Gaza Mosque — “They are all liars, they are the ones who must be butchered and killed…”

Excerpts from a sermon delivered by Ahmad Bahr, acting speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, which aired on Sudan TV in 2007. “Oh Allah, Count their numbers, and kill them to the very last one… defeat the Jews and the Americans.

This sort of material is far from unknown. There is a large amount of similar content on the web. It is no secret that Palestinian incitement to hatred against Israel, and Jews generally, is a defining feature of their culture. It is commonly cited as a response to those doggedly supporting the Palestinians. And yet such genocidal hate mongering is continually ignored by the international media and world leaders.

A predominant feature of the pro-Palestinian movement in the last decade has been to advocate for a one-state solution where Muslim Palestinians will make a majority of the populace. This is not terribly far from the stance terrorist organisations like Hamas adopt in seeking a one-state solution involving the abolition of Israel as a Jewish state. It is clear that the pro-Palestinian movement including the BDS boycott campaign has done at least as much to delegitimise Israel as Hamas but in a shorter timeframe. It would seem that many Palestinians have learnt this lesson, which explains why only 45% said they subscribed to the Hamas charter’s statement that the only solution to the Palestinian problem is jihad.

Perhaps related is the finding that 65% of Palestinians preferred talks to violence. An article about the Poll by the Guardian highlighted that two-thirds of Palestinians favoured talking over violence. However, before celebrating the imminent possibility of peace, it must be noted that 66% stated that a two-state solution should only be an interim solution followed with a single Palestinian state, echoing Arafat’s dishonest “two-stage” approach to the peace process. Such views are clearly a recipe for further conflict rather than peace.

It is no coincidence that elsewhere in the media the poll was reported with a startlingly dishonest slant. Such coverage, which ignores the results suggesting extremism, is a reflection of broad media coverage, which shies away from negative portrayals of the Palestinians even if it makes for a better news story. It perpetuates the pro-Palestinian myth that Israel is exclusively to blame for a lack of peace. Coverage on pro-Palestinian websites also whitewashed the poll findings.

Interestingly Israel welcomed the statistic that demonstrated Palestinians preferred talks to violence which on the face of it is bizarre since the survey also found that 61% of Palestinians reject a two-state solution. It’s telling that they welcomed one statistical finding that only sounds positive when stripped of context perhaps because any faint suggestion Palestinian fantaticism may be on the decrease is welcome news.

During the same month that the Poll was taken, Nabil Shaath, one of the most senior politicians in the Palestinian Authority, asserted in an interview on the Lebanese ABN TV station that the PA will never accept a two-state solution to the Conflict:

The recognition of a [Palestinian] state is basically a bilateral action, which receives the blessing of the UN. This act, however, will make many things possible in the future. Eventually, we will be able to sign bilateral agreements with states, and this will enable us to exert pressure on Israel. […] The story of “two states for two peoples” means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this…

This is one of many examples of unguarded talk from the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority as a cursory look at Palwatch and Memri will attest.

It is clear the vast Western support base for the Palestinian cause is in actual fact facilitating a continued state of strife, where no pressure whatsoever is brought to bear on the Palestinians to make any meaningful concessions for peace. The genocidal character of the incitement and the celebration of terrorism is excused, ignored, and often justified.

It can be concluded that neither the apparently moderate Palestinian leaders, nor most of the Palestinian people themselves, seek a meaningful peace with Israel, nor do many of their supporters. There is an ugly truth behind the findings of the Poll, and in the present situation where the prospect of peace is more distant than ever, the UN recognition of a Palestinian state would be an unmitigated disaster.


Also published at Crethi Plethi