David Singer: Trump and Netanyahu Ready to Create History in Judea and Samaria

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

President Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are readying to create history together on 1 July when Israel restores Jewish sovereignty after 3000 years in 1697km² [square kilometers] of territory comprising 30% of Judea and Samaria – the Jewish People's biblical and ancient heartland.

About 65000 Arabs – 5% of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria – and 450000 Jews live in the area proposed for Jewish sovereignty.

The road forward has been made possible after Netanyahu was unanimously confirmed as Israel’s next Prime Minister by 11 judges of Israel’s Supreme Court.

Trump’s map (pictured below) gives practical expression to the following international treaties and documents justifyingIsrael’s proposed action:

• The San Remo Resolution and Treaty of Sevres in 1920

• The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922

• Article 80 of the UN Charter

Trump’s translation of a dream – begun 100 years ago at San Remo – into a miraculous reality for the Jewish people in July2020 – should be welcomed by every Jew worldwide – privileged to be the generation to see this amazing reaffirmation of the Jewish People’s past history coming alive again.

Instead, this momentous occasion is being met with opposition by many Jewish organisations, media and individuals concerned at what they call “West Bank Annexation” – the identical language used by the UN and EU, PLO and Arab League in opposing Israel’s action.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Restoring Jewish sovereignty in Judea and Samaria –      designated for reconstitution of the Jewish National Home by the international community 100 years ago – is not “West Bank annexation”.

Trump and Netanyahu – therefore – would certainly not have welcomed the publication in the New York Times of an article by Middle East Forum President – Daniel Pipes – headlined “Annexing the West Bank would hurt Israel”.

Pipes opposes Israel’s decision for six reasons:

• President Trump could well erupt in fury at Israel for “unilaterally acting”on 1 July

• “Annexation”would alienate and weaken Israel’s diminishing number of friends in the Democratic Party and in Europe

• “Unilateral Israeli annexation”could end Israel’sexpanding ties with Sunni Arab states.

• “Annexation”could destabilize “Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza”.

• “Annexation”is sure to alienate Israel’s Leftwhich would lead probably to a contingent of Israeli Zionists turning anti-Zionist, with some Israelis leaving the country in disgust

• “Annexation”would be likely to make more Palestinians eligible to become citizens of Israel. 

Two of Pipes’s reasons suggesting “unilateral action” by Israel are simply untrue.

The remaining four will not deter Netanyahu from proceeding to realise this epic milestone in the history of the Jewish People – simultaneously strengthening Israel’s ability to protect the safety and security of its citizens against those Arab neighbours who seek its destruction.

Pipes asks: “And what does annexation actually achieve?”

His answer indicates he has no conception of the miracle unfolding before his very eyes:

“It is a symbolic move, a gesture toward Israelis living on the West Bank in legal limbo. But annexation does not extricate them from that limbo, since it is likely that no important government in the world would recognize their change in legal status.”

This is no symbolic move. The territory involved may be miniscule but this moment in the timeline of the Jewish People is also highly significant for mankind.

Those Jews who returned to reclaim Judea and Samaria following the Six Day War in1967 – after every Jew living there was driven out in 1948 – will be finally recognized and vindicated. Words count.  Pipes – like so many other critical Jews – is sadly missing the big picture.

Author’s note: The cartoon – commissioned exclusively for this article – is by Yaakov Kirschen aka “Dry Bones” – one of Israel’s foremost political and social commentators – whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades. His cartoons can be viewed at Drybonesblog

Europe's Islamic Future: "There are reasons to believe ... resistance is building"

In the wake of the recent Australian General Election that has seen Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal Party limp to victory, just avoiding a hung Parliament, and excluding from his Cabinet conservatives such as Tony Abbott (the prime minister Turnbull toppled in a grubby coup some months ago), the latest issue of the Australian Jewish News carries an editorial that observes, inter alia:

"The moderate brand that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has identified with has seen the PM wedged between Labor on the one hand and conservatives within his own party on the other.

In an age of doctrinaire political certitudes on the right and the left, steering the middle course may not be the most fashionable option, but it is the most responsible.

Australians have historically voted for governments of the political centre, and voters have shunned voices closer to the fringes.

In a world that flirts with Donald Trump and embraces Brexit, we hope common sense will prevail in Australia."

 With those words the paper insults not only the millions of decent Australians with views that mirror Mr Abbott's and respected conservative columnist Andrew Bolt's, but the many many millions of decent Britons who voted for their country to leave the squalid bureaucratic tyranny that is the EU.

Going on to deplore the re-election to the Senate of a proven racist fringe party leader who demands a ban on Muslim immigration to Australia, the editorial observes "[A]s Jews, we know what it is like being on the receiving end of such policies in bygone eras."

And a report in the paper quotes a statement by a prominent communal figure that  "vilification of Islam ... must be repudiated".

Such a view threatens to place in the "racist bigot" box women who deplore Islam's misogyny as well as the writings of Australia's leading scholar of Islam, Anglican priest Dr Mark Durie.

 It is untenable that the faults of Islam cannot be discussed without the discussant suffering obloquy.

The paper, which to my certain knowledge once summarily rejected an article (a perfectly reasonable one) by a regular columnist on the grounds that it was "an Islamophobic rant" (the paper has long since adopted "Islamophobia" into its lexicon), has become rather too left-leaning for many readers.  These are people who resent being cast as extremists and lumped in with racists merely because they have the temerity to express disquiet about large-scale Muslim immigration into Australia and its likely effect on government policy towards Israel (we see this trend already in sections of the Labor Party).

As a London reader wrote to the paper in response to a foolish, ignorant and in some ways quite despicable article in the paper by the British principal of an Australian Jewish day school who thundered that Brexit makes him ashamed of his native land,

"Those who voted for Brexit felt this was no longer their country.  Their national identity was denigrated by the EU and their cultural heritage was threatened .... He does not fully understand what is happening here .... If he despairs of us, he is no loss to Britain...."

One man from outside Europe who completely understands what is happening there and elsewhere in Europe is Dr Daniel Pipes, who in this latest Gatestone Institute/The Rebel.com video outlines three possible scenarios for the future of Europe.

See also here
And here

French Jewish reaction here:

"The Great Question is Whether They Go Quietly into the Night or Whether They Rebel Against [Islamism]" (videos)

As Donald Trump observed today, Barack Obama seems more outraged over Trump's reaction to the Orlando massacre than over the perpetrator of it.

We're used to leftist-edited footage that portrays the idiosyncratically quoiffured would-be president as a dangerous whacko buffoon.

But in this interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity, which includes denunciation of the Iran Deal and Obama's treatment of Israel, Mr Trump appears positively statesmanlike.

"This could be the all time Great Trojan Horse," he says of his rival's proposed immigration policy....  I'm much better for women than Hillary Clinton is ...."

It's well worth watching.

Meanwhile, also in the wake of the Orlando massacre, Dr Daniel Pipes has beeen telling Canadian broadcaster Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media (http://www.Facebook.com/JoinTheRebel *** http://www.Twitter.com/TheRebelTV) that he thinks

“The rebellion against Islam and Islamism is growing in Europe ... The great question for France and for the rest of Europe is whether they go quietly into the night or whether they rebel against it”

Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog

'She Also Exposed The Big Lie Which Tells Of A "Zionist Invasion" Of A Supposedly Arab Country': A seminal author remembered

 "My goal is to shed light on those same facts and relationships that were hidden from me, and to give this book to others who made the same mistakes that I did."

So explained Joan Peters (pictured), author of From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine, who died recently.

You have to be over a certain age to remember Joan Peters' book, published by Harper & Row, and the sensational reception it had.  The year was 1984, and it debunked the received wisdom regarding the history and demography of the land called Palestine, which led, inevitably, to controversy and attempts to discredit her conclusions.

The fruit of her researches surprised Joan Peters herself, for although Jewish herself (she was born Joan Friedman in Chicago in 1936) she really only became interested in the subject while covering the Yom Kippur War for CBS and was, it seems, inclined towards the Palestinian Arab cause when she started on her book.

Discussing her work, the prominent scholar Dr Daniel Pipes has observed, inter alia:

'Although the Jews alone moved to Palestine for ideological reasons, they were not alone in emigrating there. Arabs joined them in large numbers, from the first aliyah in 1882 to the creation of Israel in 1948. "The Arabs were moving into the very areas where Jewish settlement had preceded them and was luring them." Arab immigration received much less attention because both the Turkish and British administrators (before and after 1917, respectively) took little interest in them....

As a result, officials in Palestine counted only a small percentage of the Arab immigrants. British records for 1934 show only 1,734 non-Jews as legal immigrants and about 3,000 as illegals. Yet, according to a newspaper interview in August 1934 with the governor of the Hauran district in Syria, "In the last few months from 30,000 to 36,000 Hauranese had entered Palestine and settled there." In 1947, British officials had counted only 37,000 Arabs as the aggregate of non-Jewish immigrants in Palestine since 1917—hardly more than had come from one district of Syria in less than one year alone.

Non-Jewish immigrants came from all parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Transjordan (as Jordan was once known), Saudi Arabia, the Yemens, Egypt, Sudan, and Libya. Thanks to British unconcern, Arab immigrants were generally left alone and allowed to settle in Mandatory Palestine. So many Arabs came, Miss Peters estimates, that "if all those Jews and all those Arabs who arrived in ... Palestine between 1893 and 1948 had remained, and if they were forced to leave now, a dual exodus of at least equal proportion would in all probability take place. Palestine would be depopulated once again." ....

What took hundreds of thousands of Arabs to Palestine? Economic opportunity. The Zionists brought the skills and resources of Europe. Like other Europeans settling scarcely populated areas in recent times—in Australia, Southern Africa, or the American West—the Jews in Palestine initiated economic activities that created jobs and wealth on a level far beyond that of the indigenous peoples. In response, large numbers of Arabs moved toward the settlers to find employment.

The conventional picture has it that Jewish immigrants bought up Arab properties, forcing the former owners into unemployment. Miss Peters argues exactly the contrary, that the Jews created new opportunities, which attracted emigrants from distant places. To the extent that there was unemployment among the Arabs, it was mostly among the recent arrivals....

The data unearthed by Joan Peters indicate that Arabs benefited economically so much by the presence of Jewish settlers from Europe that they traveled hundreds of miles to get closer to them.

In turn, this explains why the definition of a refugee from Palestine in 1948 is a person who lived there for just two years: because many Arab residents in 1948 had immigrated so recently. The usual definition would have cut out a substantial portion of the persons who later claimed to be refugees from Palestine.

Thus, the "Palestinian problem" lacks firm grounding. Many of those who now consider themselves Palestinian refugees were either immigrants themselves before 1948 or the children of immigrants. This historical fact reduces their claim to the land of Israel; it also reinforces the point that the real problem in the Middle East has little to do with Palestinian-Arab rights.'  [Emphasis added, here and below]

Nadav Shragai now notes:

'....[Joan Peters] slaughtered the sacred cow known as "the Palestinian refugee problem" by revealing just how the United Nations altered the criteria for gaining refugee status in order to exacerbate the problem well beyond its proper dimensions. Peters discovered that the U.N.'s changing requirements for being listed as a Palestinian refugee essentially turned them into something else, something far different from other refugees in distant crises.

Peters even offered proof that many of the Palestinian refugees that earned special status in the eyes of the U.N. were never even residents of prestate Israel "from time immemorial," contradicting a long-standing Palestinian claim. Instead, these were immigrants who had only arrived quite recently.

There were many who followed in Peters' footsteps. They backed up her facts, but she was the first to bring them to light. Peters was the first to challenge the underlying assumptions of Palestinian wretchedness and refugee status. ...

The debate that was sparked by Peters' book has never been more relevant since it laid the foundations for later works of research on the subject of refugee status. Prior to the "birth" of the Palestinian matter, the customary definition of refugee was an individual who was forced to leave their residence from time immemorial due to war, hostile actions, or expulsion.

The U.N.'s alternate definition of refugee, which was applied solely to the Palestinians, states that a refugee is anyone who lived in the area that currently encompasses the State of Israel for a period of two years prior to the founding of the state in 1948. The Arab League, which was the driving force behind the newly reconfigured definition, managed to significantly inflate the number of refugees. Indeed, many of the refugees who fled or were expelled from the country did immigrant to prestate Israel during the British Mandate period.

Ze'ev Galili, a veteran Israeli journalist, often used his newspaper column to cite Peters' work. He even had a hand in the reissuance of her book in the early part of the previous decade.

"Not only did Peters expose the bluff of the criteria for refugee status," he said, "but she also exposed the big lie which tells of a 'Zionist invasion' of a supposedly Arab country, even though it is known that the First Aliyah consisted of Jews coming to an empty country, while a very significant percentage of the Arab population in 1948 were immigrants who came here after the advent of Zionism."...

Peters found that the Arab population grew in proportion to the rising Jewish presence in the country. Indeed, the economic prosperity generated by the budding Zionist enterprise, particularly in the latter stages of the 19th century, spurred internal Arab migration from Transjordan and the highlands (the traditional areas of Arab settlement in Palestine). It also invited illegal Arab immigration from all over the Middle East. Arabs settled along the coastal plain and the Shfela region, both areas that were inhabited primarily by Jews.

Peters' conclusion was clear: Most of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 who fled the coastal area were not, as the Palestinians claim, inhabitants of the land "from time immemorial," but instead were recent newcomers. They were not refugees. Instead, they were economic migrants who eventually would return to their original homes after the founding of the state....

The number of documents that Peters unearthed was tremendous. Her prolific research was also a source of confusion. Some disagreed with the numbers she cited in her research, but even her critics had a difficult time contradicting what was painfully obvious -- hundreds of thousands of Arabs had settled in the heart of Jewish-populated areas. When they were expelled, they were given the status of refugees, even though they had not been here "from time immemorial.".... 

Read  the entire article here

Say Goodnight To Sweden, Gracie

Oh dear, all really is not well in the land that recently voted to recognise a Palestinian state.  It seems that it's not only in Sweden's second city, Malmo, long known as a centre of Islamist anti-Jewish activity, that the negative consequences of mass Muslim immigration are being heavily felt.

Just read this article, for instance.

The menace of mass Muslim immigration is a sober reality for many of the nations of northern and western Europe, of course, and not least for their Jewish citizens (see here for Sweden's courtship of the Muslim vote) , so we certainly should not gloat.

 Meanwhile, in Denmark, Daniel Pipes and Geert Wilders consider the threat to Western societies:

 

The War On Terror & Radical Islamism (video)

My technical problems Down Under are now (hopefully) fixed, which means that I'll be blogging regularly again.  As a starter after the hiatus, here's a mob of Israel-haters in Sydney last week, marking so-called Nakba Day (hat tip: reader Shirlee).

And below is a much longer video, from Shalom TV, featuring Daniel Pipes (founder and director of the Middle East Forum) and Rabbi Eric Yoffie (immediate past president of the Union for Reform Judaism) giving their differing views on the threat to the West posed by Islamism, the one arguably realist and the other overly phlegmatic:

Prejudicing Public Opinion against Israel – Al Beeb and the History Channel

With its loathsome left-liberal bias against the interests of Britain, the United States, and the West in general, the BBC has long dealt in half-truthes and distortions where reportage and (all too often gratuitous and unwarranted) commentary regarding Israel and "Palestine" is concerned. But it seems that, sadly, the History Channel, which puts out so many fascinating and popular programmes, can’t be trusted for scrupulous accuracy or fairness either. The following, courtesy of J-Wire, is by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer. It’s entitled "Palestine – the BBC and the History Channel Bias Distort Debate"  (I've added illustrations of anti-Israel demos in London and the USA).

The BBC and the History Channel stand accused of denigrating Israel by the use of factually incorrect statements or misleading and deceptive statements that are factually correct but only tell half the story. Take this gem from the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11988018:

"Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war. It withdrew its troops from Gaza in 2005."

No mention is made of the fact that Israel also simultaneously evacuated all 8000 Jewish civilians who had been living there as well. Was the omission of the words "and 8000 Jewish civilians" due to space constraints?

The BBC did not have to mention that such evacuation was done unilaterally to advance the peace process, such evacuation was subsequently followed by a Hamas takeover of Gaza that threatens any further progress in peacefully ending the conflict and that the civilian population of Israel has been subjected to incessant and indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza ever since the evacuation was completed.

However – failing to mention those 8000 civilians in this news item as part of Israel’s pull out from Gaza can only be viewed as an attempt to downgrade the extent and significance of Israel’s withdrawal.

The History Channel’s release http://www.history.com/this-day-in.../un-votes-for-partition-of-palestine for one of its programmes illustrates a similar bias that is ugly in its contemplation.

Consider these statements:

"Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state"

No mention is made of the fact that the UN also voted for the creation of an independent Arab State.  Again the inclusion of just nine words "and an independent Arab state which the Arabs rejected" would have clearly indicated that the UN had not only offered the Jews a state but also offered the Arabs one as well – which the Arabs rejected.

The failure to insert those missing words carries the innuendo that only the Jews were offered a state in 1947 but the Arabs missed out and begs the question – isn’t it time the UN now rectified that injustice in 2010?

"The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory"

Actually the conflict had started about thirty years earlier – so that chunk of history is either unknown to the History Channel’s researchers or was deliberately overlooked.

The territory was not "British-controlled" until the conclusion of World War 1. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until then. 

Pity the poor students who use this material in their projects – and their teachers – who rely on this material as being accurate and reliable.

"The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state"

Really? Are the history buffs at the History Channel unaware of the following facts*?

"The three main political organizations in Palestine-the Arab Club, the Literary Club, and the Muslim-Christian Association (the lack of mention of Palestine in their names is revealing) — all worked for union with Syria. The first two went farthest, calling outright for rule by Prince Faysal. Amin al-Husayni was president of the Arab Club; the extremism which later made him notorious as the leader of Palestinian separatism (and an ally of Hitler) already showed itself in 1920, when he instigated riots for union with Syria. A member of the Arab Club, Kamil al-Budayri, co-edited from September 1919 the newspaper Suriya al-Janubiya (“Southern Syria”) which advocated Palestine’s incorporation into Greater Syria.

Even the Muslim-Christian Association, an organization of traditional leaders-men who expected to rule if Palestine became independent-demanded incorporation in Greater Syria. Its president insisted that “Palestine or Southern Syria-an integral part of the one and indivisible Syria-must not in any case or for any pretext be detached.” The Muslim-Christian Association held a Congress in early 1919 to draw up demands for the Paris Peace Conference. It declared that Palestine, a “part of Arab Syria,” is permanently connected to Syria through “national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic, and geographical bonds,” and resolved that “Southern Syria or Palestine should not be separated from the independent Arab Syrian government.” Musa Kazim al-Husayni, Head of the Jerusalem Town Council (in effect, mayor) told a Zionist interlocutor in October 1919: “We demand no separation from Syria.” The slogan heard everywhere in 1918-19 was “Unity, Unity, From the Taurus [mountains in Turkey] to Rafah [in Gaza], Unity, Unity."

"Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine"

Staggeringly the History Channel seems to be unaware of the 1920 riots which saw four Arabs and five Jews killed, while 216 Jews were wounded – 18 critically – and 23 Arabs wounded – one critically.

"Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine"

Since when is fighting the armed forces of your adversary – not its civilians – described as "terrorism"? The History Channel’s biased slip is surely on display for all to see.

"At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause"

The United States had taken up the Zionist cause on 30 June 1922 when both Houses of Congress unanimously endorsed the Mandate for Palestine.

On 21 September 1922 President Warren Harding signed the joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine

"The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine…"

It is a pity the History Channel could not have added: "more than 70% of which was the arid and sparsely populated Negev Desert"

"The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces"

Strange that the History Channel should be unaware that these “volunteers” comprised the “Arab Liberation Army” set up in Damascus under the command of Fawzi Kaukji. Seven of these detachments with a strength of about 5000 had made their way into Palestine by March 1948. They were divided into four commands.

"The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded"

Oops – the History Channel forgot to include Saudi Arabia – a small oversight.

The History Channel then has the gall to state at the end of this outrageous release:

"Fact Check. We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us! "

Creating myth instead of stating fact is one of the greatest impediments to securing a resolution of the conflict between the Arabs and Jews.

The next time you watch the History Channel (if you ever do so again) – don’t take what you hear and see as the truth. There are apparently a lot of dunderheads employed there or – perhaps more insidiously – persons deliberately bent on misleading the public.

[*From Daniel Pipes, “Palestine for the Syrians?”, Commentary, December 1986, which begins:

‘During a meeting with leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1976, Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad referred to Palestine as a region of Syria, as Southern Syria. He then went on to tell the Palestinians: "You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Do not forget one thing: there is no Palestinian people, no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria! You are an integral part of the Syrian people and Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the real representatives of the Palestinian people."

Although unusually candid, this outburst exemplifies a long tradition of Syrian politics, and one that has gained increasing importance in recent years. The Asad government presents itself as not just an Arab state protecting the rights of the Palestinians but as the rightful ruler of the land that Israel controls. According to this view, the existing republic of Syria is but a truncated part of the Syrian lands; accordingly, the government in Damascus has a duty to unite all Syrian regions, including Palestine, under its control.

The growth in Syrian military capabilities in recent years makes these ambitions a major source of instability throughout the Levant. Indeed, the Syrian claim to "Southern Syria" has become central to the Arab-Israeli conflict; Syrian has become not only Israel's principal opponent, but also the PLO's. Damascus is likely to retain this role for many years, certainly as long as Hafiz al-Asad lives, and probably longer.

When Asad uses the term Southern Syria, he implicitly harks back to the old meaning of the name "Syria." Historically, "Syria" (Suriya or Sham in Arabic) refers to a region far larger than the Syrian Arab Republic of today. At a minimum, historic Syria stretches from Anatolia to Egypt, and from Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea. In terms of today's political geography, it comprises all of four states-Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon-as well as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and substantial portions of southeastern Turkey. To distinguish this territory from the present Syrian state, it is known as Greater Syria.

Until 1920, Syria meant Greater Syria to everyone, European and Middle Easterner alike; For example, an early nineteenth-century Egyptian historian, 'Abd ar-Rahman al-Jabarti, referred to the inhabitants of El Arish in the Sinai Peninsula as Syrians. Palestine was called Southern Syria first in French, then in other languages, including Arabic. The 1840 Convention of London called the area around Akko "the southern part of Syria" and the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (published in 1911) explains that Palestine "may be said generally to denote the southern third of the province of Syria." These examples could be multiplied a thousand-fold.’] For the full article see http://www.danielpipes.org/174/palestine-for-the-syrians