David Singer: Sanders and Bloomberg Boost Hopes for Netanyahu Election Win

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

He writes:

Democratic Party contenders for the American Presidency – Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg – have unwittingly given Israel’s Prime Minister – Bibi Netanyahu – an unexpected boost to becoming Israel’s next Prime Minister on 2 March.

During a nationally-televised Democratic Party Presidential contenders’ debate – Sanders made this inflammatory claim:

 “I am very proud of being Jewish. I actually lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that, right now, sadly, tragically, in Israel, through Bibi Netanyahu, you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country.”

This “reactionary racist” just happens to be Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister – victorious after six election campaigns conducted in fully democratic and openly transparent elections. Sanders’ comment doesn’t say much for his opinion of the majority of Israelis whose votes have kept Netanyahu there.

Bloomberg was motivated to chime in with his take on Israel:

“Well, the battle has been going on for a long time in the Middle East, whether it’s the Arabs versus the Persians, the Shias versus the Sunnis, the Jews in Israel and the Palestinians, it’s only gone on for 40 or 50 years.
Number one, you can’t move the embassy back. We should not have done it without getting something from the Israeli government. But it was done, and you’re going to have to leave it there.
Number two, only solution here is a two-state solution. The Palestinians have to be accommodated…”

• The conflict between Jews and Arabs in former Palestine has been going on for 100 years – not 40 or 50 years. Brainwashed by Arab propaganda, Bloomberg had erased the origins of the conflict which began with the San Remo conference and Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

Bloomberg – in mentioning the need for a two-state solution – was apparently ignorant of the fact that the Palestinian Arabs had been allocated 78% of Palestine in 1922 – which subsequently became a sovereign state renamed the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946 – today called Jordan.

For someone aspiring to be America’s next President, Bloomberg displayed an appalling lack of knowledge about this long-running and unresolved conflict.

• Had President Trump obtained a quid pro quo from Israel for moving America’s Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem he would have risked impeachment by the Trump-hating Democrats. The Embassy was moved because American embassies are always located in the capitols of each country.

One major policy difference between Netanyahu and Gantz makes this Israeli election an especially historic and momentous one:

• Netanyahu is offering – if re-elected and with Trump’s approval – to immediately extend sovereignty into the Jewish People’s heartland – Judea and Samaria – after a 3000 years absence
• Netanyahu’s chief rival – Benny Gantz – will not do so until the Arab States and the international community agree.

Sanders and Bloomberg’s disparaging anti-Zionist rants could prove to be the catalysts needed to see the Jewish People turning this 3000-year dream into a living reality.

Sander’s and Bloomberg’s comments could galvanize tens of thousands of angry Israelis – who don’t usually vote out of sheer apathy – into voting for Netanyahu.

Voter turnout at Israel’s last election in September 2019 was a disappointing 69.83% – only slightly higher than the 68.46% in the February 2019 elections – given the huge incentive to vote to break the unprecedented February deadlock.

Latest polls indicate Netanyahu has now moved ahead of Gantz for the first time.
Sanders and Bloomberg have ensured Netanyahu’s late momentum continues – which could indeed see Israel finally ending the political stalemate that has marked the previous two deadlocked elections.

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

"Israel is a Democratic State ... We are Treated Just Like the Jews"

Here's one for the Israel-bashing Bowens, Knells and Donnisons of the BBC, as told to one of their colleagues:

"Israel is a democratic state. I have not seen any injustice there. We are treated just like the Jews".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkgDG8c-u_Y

To quote the translator and uploader, Memri.org:

'Sayyaf Sharif Daoud, a captured Israeli-Arab ISIS fighter who holds Israeli citizenship, said in a July 16, 2019 interview on BBC Arabic (U.K.) that he had joined ISIS instead of the Palestinian resistance because his experience of having lived through the Second Intifada and of having lived in the West Bank and in Israel had taught him that Israel "has not done one percent of what Bashar Al-Assad has done."

He explained that despite the fighting, Israel has never raped women or brutally killed people like the Assad regime has.

 Daoud also said that his father had warned him against joining Hamas and Fatah, and he expressed regret at having joined ISIS. 

He said he hopes that Israel will take him back so that his life can return to normal. Daoud added that Israel is a democracy in which he has not seen injustice and in which Arabs and Jews live together and are treated equally.'

David Singer: Ilhan Omar Needs to Rethink her Flawed Position on Palestine

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

He writes:

For far too long political debate has been reduced to name-calling and identity labelling, with facts and reasoned arguments taking second place – consigning civilised discourse and the exchange of ideas and opinions into the trash bin.

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has taken a positive step in reversing this burgeoning practice of personal denigration and arbitrary dismissal of opinions of those with whom one doesn’t agree – in setting out her opinion on resolving the Arab-Jewish conflictin an op-ed article in the Washington Post on 17 March.

Omar’s opinion is based on factual errors and her failure to take into account other relevant facts – as this sentence by sentence analysis of her position makes clear:

1.“The founding of Israel 70 years ago was built on the Jewish people’s connection to their historical homeland, as well as the urgency of establishing a nation in the wake of the horror of the Holocaust and the centuries of anti-Semitic oppression leading up to it.”

The founding of Israel pre-dated the Holocaust – back to the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War One. Palestine – within boundaries to be determined – which had formed part of the territory of the Ottoman Empire for the previous 400 years -was designated by the Principal Allied Powers at the San Remo Conference held in April 1920 as the location for the “establishment of a national home for the Jewish people.”

This decision was unanimously endorsed by the League of Nations when granting Great Britain the Mandate for Palestine in 1922. The Mandate’s boundaries comprised what is today called Israel, Jordan, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza. However the establishment of the Jewish National Home in Transjordan – 78% of Mandatory Palestine – was postponed or withheld under article 25 of the Mandate.

2.“We must acknowledge that this is also the historical homeland of Palestinians.” 

The “Palestinians” were not recognised as an identifiable people in 1917. The Mandate for Palestine regarded the Arab residents of Palestine as forming part of the “existing non-Jewish communities” in Palestine – whose civil and religious rights were not to be prejudiced. The “Palestinians” were only defined for the first time in the 1964 PLO Charter – article 6.

 3.“And without a state, the Palestinian people live in a state of permanent refugeehood and displacement.” 

The Palestinian Arabs acquired their own state and independence in 1946 in Jordan – 78% of Palestine. Hamas exercises full administrative control over the Arab residents of Gaza. The PLO exercises full administrative control over 95% of the Arab population of Judea and Samaria (West Bank).

4.“This, too, is a refugee crisis, and they, too, deserve freedom and dignity.” 

A refugee crisis exists in Lebanon and Syria because the Palestinian Arabs living there have been denied citizenship for 70 years.

5.“I support a two-state solution, with internationally recognized borders, which allows for both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own sanctuaries and self-determination.'' 

There are already two such states in 95% of former Palestine – one (78%) for the Arabs called Jordan – one (17%) for the Jews, called Israel.

6.“This has been official bipartisan U.S. policy across two decades and has been supported by each of the most recent Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the consensus of the Israeli security establishment.” 

New solutions are required after negotiations spanning 25 years have failed to create a second Arab state in former Palestine between Israel and Jordan. Redrawing the international bordersbetween Jordan Israel and Egypt could be game changers. 

Hopefully Congresswoman Omar will rethink her flawed position and continue this dialogue.

David Singer: PLO-Hamas anti-England, anti-Israel Hatred Politicises FIFA World Cup

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

He writes:

Hatred against Britain and Israel surfaced in Gaza as England progressed its way through the World Cup to meet Sweden in the quarter finals.

One Gaza fan was outspoken:

“Of course I will support Sweden.

I can’t imagine a Palestinian supporting England, which created the Balfour Declaration, or not supporting the country that stood before the world and recognized our state.” 

The 1917 Balfour Declaration has never been forgotten or forgiven by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Hamas – both of whom consider the Declaration to be null and void – spending decades in spruiking this false message to their respective constituencies – fomenting Arab hatred against the Jews since the Declaration first called for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

The fuming Gaza fan was expressing his resentment by barracking for Sweden – even though Sweden was one of the 51 countries that transformed the Balfour Declaration into binding international law by unanimously incorporating it in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922.

Our anguished fan was blissfully unaware of these facts having obviously not studied the 100 years old Arab-Jewish conflict. Anti-England prejudice was enough to back his decision to go for Sweden. True – Sweden had purged itself of its 1922 decision when officially recognizing the State of Palestine in October 2014 – making it the first major European Union member state to back the PLO’s statehood bid.

However in atoning for its 1922 sin, Sweden’s recognition of the “State of Palestine” was a fiction that failed to meet the requirements demanded in international law by Article 1 of the 1933 Montevideo Convention which states:

“The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications:

a. A permanent population

b. A defined territory

c. Government

d. Capacity to enter into relations with the other states

FIFA’s admission of the Palestinian Football Federation as a member of FIFA in 1988 had also contravened Article 10.1 of FIFA’s then governing articles:

'Any Association which is responsible for organising and supervising football in its country may become a Member of FIFA. In this context, the expression “country” shall refer to an independent state recognised by the international Community.'

FIFA started living in its own dream world 26 years before Sweden joined it. Who will replace Sweden as Britain’s nemesis was summed up by another fan:

“Anyone supporting England is supporting Israel itself. These teams represent their countries and governments and will raise their flags in the stands. How can I support the country that allowed the Jewish state on our land?”

The Gazan fans are in for a shock and a reality check when they begin choosing one of the three remaining teams – France, Belgium or Croatia – to topple the evil Brits.

France, Belgium and Croatia just happen to have all voted in favour of the Mandate for Palestine incorporating the Balfour Declaration.

The semi-finals, final and third-place playoff will be agony for Gazan viewers as one of these last four countries holds up the trophy on the winner’s podium come finals day – the others the three minor places - with their flags filling Gaza’s TV screens.

The moral is clear – international law cannot be turned on and off as circumstances dictate – because one day the perpetrator will become entrapped in the hopeless position that the Arab States, the PLO and Hamas now find themselves.

Throwing out binding international law – the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate for Palestine – and falsely creating fake international law – “the State of Palestine” – goes to the heart of why the Arab-Jewish conflict still remains unresolved in 2018.
 
(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)

David Singer: PLO-Hamas Referendum Could Boost Trump Peace Plan

Have you seen this video (English subtitles) from Israelly Cool?  If not, have a look and spread its fame.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=RRpDGA_ZAtM

Meanwhile, here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

There is little hope that reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah will end a decade of bitter internecine feuding which has seen a parallel entrenchment of territorial divisions between them in Gaza and the West Bank.

Gazan and West Bank Arab populations will continue to be the victims of this ongoing power play as both groups remain bitterly opposed to recognising Israel as the Jewish National Home.

Elections have not been held since January 2006 when Hamas won a large majority in the new Palestinian parliament trouncing the governing Fatah party.

Since then, conflict between Hamas and Fatah has seen any prospect of the peaceful creation of a second Arab State – in addition to Jordan – in the territory encompassed by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine – consigned to the diplomatic scrapheap.

Now it seems that Hamas and Fatah are seeking yet again to come to some form of reconciliation  – which will only be about preserving their own organisations and retaining their current powers and privileges and have nothing to do with giving their long-suffering populations any say in their own future.

Clearly whatever game of musical chairs they intend to play – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made Israel’s position very clear – reportedly stating that as part of any reconciliation Hamas must:

1. recognise Israel

2. dismantle Hamas’s military wing and

3. Break off ties with Iran.

Any hope of these conditions being met is a pipe dream. Netanyahu also declared:

“We expect everyone who talks about a peace process to recognize the State of Israel and, of course, the Jewish state. We cannot accept fake reconciliation on the Palestinian side that comes at the expense of our existence.”

Again this is simply not going to happen.

Whatever window dressing occurs between Hamas and Fatah will therefore be of no consequence in resolving the Jewish-Arab conflict or in influencing President Trump to believe that such steps are capable of contributing to the President successfully brokering an end to that 100 years old conflict.

The absence of elections for eleven years has created a void that has had disastrous consequences for the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations – impacting the lives of every single Gazan and West Bank Arab.

The likelihood of free and fair elections continues to be a distant dream.

PLO leader Yasser Arafat – perhaps in an unguarded moment – made the following promise back in May 1983 when interviewed in Middle East Review:

“When the occupied territories are liberated, we will move towards a referendum that will set up constitutionally a framework for special relations between Jordan and liberated Palestine.”

That referendum has failed to materialise despite the fact that since 2007:

1. Hamas has controlled 100% of Gaza and its entire population

2. The PLO – of which Fatah is the major member – has controlled 40% of the West Bank within which 95% of the total West Bank Arab population currently reside.

Arafat’s referendum proposal should be implemented – if elections are once again denied.
Holding this referendum would indicate a willingness by both Hamas and Fatah to work towards a peaceful resolution of the Jewish-Arab conflict - working arm in arm with Jordan – rather than continuing their belligerent confrontation with Israel – both militarily and diplomatically – that has marked the last 10 years.

Such a referendum would send a clear signal to President Trump that there could indeed be some possible light at the end of the Gazan terrorist-tunnels – that a framework involving Jordan represents the best possible way forward out of the current impasse.

Seeing the referendum realised remains the challenge for Trump to pursue.

"There's Never Been A Love Affair Like It in All History"

That's how Lord Sacks, in this wonderful video, aptly describes the Jewish attachment to Jerusalem, and reminds us that it's only under Jewish rule over the past 50 years that worshippers from all three monotheistic religions have been able to pray freely there.

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9PCaqWQaI

Another good video here:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2VTl4ciAQM

The following post by British reader Brian Goldfarb first appeared as a guest post on the robust Israeli blog Anne's Opinions early in May. Now, with his permission, I'm reproducing it here:

As we approach the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, although it is five months away, it seems to me that it is important to start talking about it and what it does say and what it doesn’t say, as well as trying to make clear its status and impact.

The actual Declaration itself is but one sentence in a letter sent to Baron Rothschild: brief to the point of being easy to miss. As Wikipedia notes:

 'The Balfour Declaration was a single paragraph in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It read:

"His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

The text of the letter was published in the press one week later, on 9 November 1917. The “Balfour Declaration” was later incorporated into both the Sèvres peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, and the Mandate for Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration was, of course, the culmination of a long campaign by the Zionist Federation (ZF) (and by Chaim Weizmann in particular). Weizmann was especially influential in this, largely because of his scientific work, as a research chemist, and especially his development of the extraction of acetone (vital for the munitions industry) from maize during the First World War on behalf of the Allies. This meant that the British Government of the day was particularly beholden to him, and Weizmann used this influence wholeheartedly on behalf of the Zionist Federation.

 (The Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on Weizmann is particularly informative on this period of his life.) It is important to note developments such as the San Remo Conference of Allied Powers (1920), which confirmed the Balfour Declaration and awarded the Palestine Mandate to Great Britain (Britannica, ibid).

It is as important, at this point, to remember that phrase from the Declaration that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.” This will be returned to below.

To move on, it is possible to argue that the Peel Commission recommendations of 1936 come close to allocating much the same territory to each side as did the 1947 UN Resolution on the ending of the British Mandate. Remember: I said “much the same” not exactly the the same, though it’s a moot point, as the Arab side rejected the Commission’s recommendations outright, despite earlier agreements between at least some Arab leaders and the Jewish Agency.

 All that said, the British Government failed, consistently, to live up to the wording of the Declaration. From the San Remo Conference onwards, despite that Conference’s agreement that

 "Britain was charged with establishing a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine [although] Terroritorial boundaries were not decided until four years after"

Britain did nothing to establish any boundaries, then or later, including after World War II and, indeed, after the 1947 UN Resolution ending the Mandate. The British didn’t even take steps to establish Transjordan, although they much favoured its creation. As a result, it is hardly surprising that the Arabs, both those in the Mandate territory and the independent nations outside it, utterly rejected the 1947 Resolution.

This background is important because of what happened next. We know that, as Weizmann later said, (paraphrasing his words) the Jews would accept any state, even if it was only the size of a tablecloth, whereas the Arabs (Palestinians weren’t invented until the early 1960s) rejected the whole idea of an Israel of any size at all.

 What happened next has been well written about by Benny Morris in “1948: The First Arab-Israeli War”: the Arab militias, from the passing of the ’47 resolution until May 1948 attempted to throw the Jews into the sea, and failed miserably, losing land and men. Then the armies of five surrounding Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq), from the Declaration of Independence on, attempted the same and also failed (except for the Jordanians, who took the land the Resolution assigned to them, more or less.

 Morris notes, more than once, that it was never policy, official or unofficial, of the Jewish Agency (the Sochnut), effectively the government of Israel in waiting, to deliberately displace the Arab population of what became Israel. The most public “expulsion”, that of Deir Yassin, was carried out by Irgun, never an official part of the Israeli state.

It is only the anti-Zionists who wish us (and themselves) to believe otherwise.

However, for the Israelis, the cost was horribly high, despite the cost to the world-wide Jewish population of the Holocaust:

4,000 Israeli soldiers and 2,000 Israeli civilians lost their lives fighting for Israeli independence. That number amounted to one percent of the Israeli population at the time. Considering the size of the Israeli population back then, this number amounted to triple the percentage of American causalities during World War II.  (See here )

Note that this quote says “casualties” for the USA, not deaths.

All this history is, for many, and, I’m sure, the vast majority of visitors to this site, well known, so why visit it again? For a very simple reason: with the approach of the centenary of the Declaration, many of those who oppose the very existence of Israel are demanding an apology from Britain for the Declaration, as though, were this to be provided, all would, in their eyes, be put right.

In their dreams.

 It’s not going to happen, probably ever, because even if Labour under Corbyn were to win the British General Election on June 8 ( a remote possibility), a majority of the MPs in the House of Commons would reject such an apology being delivered.

 As it already has. Just note the following, from Honest Reporting’s Israel Daily News Service (IDNS) of 26/4/17:

'After Britain refused to apologize for the Balfour declaration, the Palestinian Authority threatens legal action.

 Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority ambassador to the UK, said on Tuesday that unless Britain apologized, canceled planned celebrations and recognized a Palestinian state, the Palestinians would go ahead with plans for a lawsuit against the British government for issuing the Balfour Declaration.'

The British government are in fact proud of their role in the Balfour Declaration (as seen here):

“The Balfour Declaration is an historic statement for which HMG (Her Majesty’s Government) does not intend to apologise,” the response began. “We are proud of our role in creating the State of Israel. The task now is to encourage moves towards peace.”

Honest Reporting notes:

"But why stop with Balfour? The PA should also sue Britain and France (for the the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement), Britain and the Husseini family (for the 1922 Cairo Conference, which created an independent Transjordan), and the UN (for the 1948 Partition Plan). The Palestinians can even sue themselves for signing the 1993 Oslo accords . . .

The UK government’s announcement was made on a petition page where Palestinian activists seeking an apology are collecting signatures.”

The British Government, under the leadership of Theresa May, is, of course, quaking in its collective boots at this threat. 

Meanwhile:

"Israel is not facing a dilemma about how much, if any, land to give up from the West Bank, because the Palestinians will not agree to take land and cannot be forced to do so. The Palestinian community sees peace with Israel as defeat in their 100-year struggle. Continued Israeli occupation is one of the Palestinians’ best weapons against Israel, and they will not give it up while their war to eliminate Israel continues. Israelis should recognize that since the Palestinians are forcing Israel to continue the temporary but long-term occupation, Israelis need to a) cooperate in reducing the moral and other costs of that occupation; and b) stop telling the world that Israel could choose to end the occupation. The occupation, like the need for military strength and to absorb casualties, is part of the price Israel has to pay to live here. Maturity means being able to go forward with no solution in sight."

That, in a nutshell, is the view of Dr Max Singer, a founder and senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.

Read the whole article here

Good Reasons for Optimism: Daniel Taub Talks (video)

Here's former Israeli ambassador to the Court of St James Daniel Taub, in Australia last week, covering several issues including the "new look" Hamas Charter:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tTSLK58yJQ

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WCyrpI6RwE

Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) videos.

David Singer: Netanyahu Sends Clear Message to Trump, Putin, May and UN

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

He writes:

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has had a busy week meeting with UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson in Jerusalem, President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and then back to Jerusalem for a five hour meeting with President Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – Jason Greenblatt.

The framework for these meetings was set by Netanyahu – who told Johnson:

“It’s evident that we agree on most things, but not on all things. And one of the things, I think the source of it when you analyze a problem, get to its roots and reason that we haven’t had peace for a hundred years is not the settlements, but the persistent refusal to recognize a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary. I think if you want to solve a problem, go to the core of the problem, and that is something I look forward to discussing with you further.”

Netanyahu’s claim is substantiated by the following facts:

1. Settlements were not the problem when the first two-state solution was proposed by article 25 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922.

That solution – which envisaged allocating the Arabs 78 per cent of Mandatory Palestine [Transjordan] and the Jews the remaining 22 per cent – was rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.

Iran – one of the 51 States then unanimously endorsing the Jewish people’s legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine – now seeks to destroy the Jewish State in 2017.

2. Settlements were not the problem in 1937 when the Peel Commission recommended partition of the territory of the Mandate into one Jewish State and one Arab State – again rejected by the Arabs but accepted by the Jews.

3. Transjordan remained part of the Mandate for Palestine until Great Britain granted it independence on 22 March 1946. 78 per cent of the Mandate territory was thus irrevocably transformed into an exclusive Arabs-only State contrary to Article 5 of the Mandate.

4. The United Nations recommendation to partition the remaining 22 per cent of the Mandate territory into one Arab State and one Jewish State in November 1947 was again rejected by the Arabs and accepted by the Jews – culminating in Western Palestine being invaded in May 1948 by six Arab armies and the forcible eviction of all Jews living in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. 

5. Settlements were not the problem between 1948 and 1967 when another Arab State could have been created with the stroke of an Arab League pen in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza whilst not one Jew lived there.

6. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2008 to another Arab State being created in Gaza and the West Bank were rejected by the Arabs.

7. In December 2016 UN Security Council Resolution 2334 declared that the Jewish Quarter and Kotel in East Jerusalem, the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem were “occupied Palestinian territory”.

UK and Russia shamefully failed to veto this Resolution.

8. Gaza is ruled by Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization governs Areas A and B of the West Bank. Both have held onto power without holding elections since 2006. Both refuse to recognize a Jewish nation-state in any boundaries.

Johnson told Netanyahu:

“I first visited [Israel] when I was – as I never tire of telling you – when I was 18.”

Netanyahu should never tire of telling world leaders that the 100 years old Jewish-Arab conflict will not be resolved until the Arabs recognise the right of the Jewish People to their own independent State.

Faith in Israel (video)

Non-Jewish Canadian journalist Faith Goldy has been visiting Israel for The Rebel.com

There are several videos online relating to her trip.  In this one she airs her conclusions concerning that "little sliver of land":

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foqXF2WG48w

David Singer: PLO Humiliated for Denying Free Speech and Elections

Photo credit: Al Jazeera

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

He writes:

Frustration with the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) has surfaced at a Conference in Istanbul on 25 and 26 February attended by 6000 Palestinian Arabs living abroad in more than 50 countries.

The organisers established a new political entity to represent Palestinian Arab diaspora communities.

The new organisation – as yet unnamed and to be based in Beirut – called for:

1. the end of the Oslo agreement signed between Israel and the PLO in 1993,

2. the restructuring of the PLO on a more representative basis for all Palestinians, and

3. the formation of a democratically elected Palestinian National Council - the PLO's legislative body in exile.

Photo Credit: Ma'an

The conference established a General Commission headed by Palestinian historian Salman abu Sitta and Majed al-Zeer, a Britain-based activist, Naela al-Waari, a scholar and women's rights activist, and Saif Abu Kishah, a youth activist, as his three deputies.

The new organisation does not aim to replace the PLO – which has been representing the Palestinian Arabs since 1964 and been their sole spokesman since 1974. Ribhi Halloum – a former PLO Ambassador stressed:

"We are trying here to create a supporting structure to be an asset to the PLO, not against it"

Fatah – the main faction in the PLO did not agree – issuing a statement attacking the conference and accusing it of being an:

“attempt to divide the Palestinian people.” 

 PLO member Ahmad al-Majdalani said that the motives behind the conference were “suspicious” – echoing accusations that the event was organized to export internal Palestinian political divisions abroad.

A member of Hamas’s politburo, Izzat al-Rashq, expressed support for the conference on behalf of Hamas – adding that:

“those who claim that Hamas is behind the conference are mistaken.”

No matter whose viewpoint one believes – the Conference is surely evidence that the Palestinian Arabs living abroad want to have a say in their own future and have formed an organisation that will allow them to do so – because they consider that the PLO as presently structured is not meeting their aspirations.

Conference spokesman Said Ziyad al Aloul supports this conclusion:

“We as Palestinian diaspora have the right to organise and tell the traditional Palestinian leaders what we think is the best way forward"

Anees Fawzi Kassem – the head of the conference – said the Oslo Accords were the worst deal possible and had resulted in Palestinians being unable to represent Palestinians.

"We are gathered here today to demand that we the people of Palestine be given our voice back,"

 Khalid Turaani, another spokesperson for the conference reportedly claimed:

"It is high time that Palestinians come together to ensure that a weak donor-bondaged [PLO] doesn't give away any more of our legal historic and moral rights in Palestine"

Kassem’s and Turanni’s sentiments will resonate with those Palestinian Arabs living under PLO rule whose voices have been silenced whilst being denied free, fair and transparent elections since 2006.

Negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the Oslo Accords were always destined to founder since the PLO Charter states that:

1. Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan are:

(i) An indivisible territorial unit and

(ii) An indivisible part of the Arab homeland

2. The 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything based on them since then are null and void.

3. Jews do not constitute a single nation with an identity of its own

Jordan and Israel’s 1994 Peace Treaty rejected these PLO deal-breakers.

Oslo’s demise opens the possibility of Jordan and Israel redrawing their existing international boundary to mutually divide the West Bank between their respective States.

President Trump should jump to seal the deal.

"Military Occupation is Clearly Permitted Under International Law Following an Aggressive Attack by a Neighbouring State" (video)

'[S]ettlements have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements." Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.
If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose anti-Semitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.'

So writes the indefatigable Douglas Murray in an article for the admirable Gatestone Institute here, mindful of the key role that Arab intransigence and bloody-minded negativism has had in creating the present imbroglio, and that Israel is more sinned against than sinning.

A similar message is contained in this Prager University talk by Professor Alan Dershowitz.  It is not a brand new video, having first appeared in 2015, but in the light of current events it's worth another whirl.

See also here

And French oleh Jean Vercors, whom regular readers of this blog may recall, writes indignantly:

'Who are the real settlers?

There are real settlers who live on land colonized, stolen, won in wars of aggression....

Today, they ... vote for anti-Jewish resolutions by dozens every year by turning a blind eye to mass killings in Syria, Iraq in Sudan, forgetting that thousands of Christians are massacred during deafening silence - theirs.

What a moral decay for those whose ears are deaf and their brains tight to denounce their indifference to humanitarian tragedies and their appetite never satisfied for the construction of homes in Judea and Samaria.

Diplomats at the UN, you voted an ignoble anti-Israeli resolution that takes the Jews out of the old city of Jerusalem, you accuse the Jews from Judea of ​​colonizing their own ancestral lands, to hide the fact that you live on land colonized and stolen lands.

The presence of Israel in Judea and Samaria which you call the West Bank is not an occupation; the Israeli settlements are legal under international law.

·       Do not read the Treaty of San Remo of 25 April 1920: it contradicts you.

·       Do not read the Resolution 80 of the Charter of the United Nations, unofficially known as the "Jewish clause", which preserves intact the rights granted to Jews by the British Mandate over Palestine even after the expiry of the said mandate on 14 May 1948 .

·       Mute your ears: this Resolution 80 forbids the United Nations to create a Palestinian state.

·       Turn off your computers to avoid reading this: no part of Palestine concerned by the British Mandate was given for the creation of a 23rd Arab State.

·       Establishing a State on lands attributed to Jews is illegal under Article 80 of the Charter of the United Nations and goes beyond the legal authority of the United Nations itself.

·       Forget your Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967: it requires that the borders be decided between the parties in peace negotiations.

The UN and the EU do not accept that a Jew may own land.

In all European history, the Jews had no right to be peasants; they had to be able to be expelled easily. That is why they are found in the financial and small craft sectors. The mentalities have not changed.

Living in Judea, its historic and ancestral land from which its name comes, poses an unsustainable problem for Europeans, but they have no problem with the 1.5 million Arabs living in Israel.

The UN is an indifferent or impotent criminal organization, which amounts to the same thing, to prevent the genocides in Syria, Sudan, Iraq, Rwanda and annexations of territories in Ukraine, the Crimea and the China Sea.

The antisemite is constantly inventing new forms and finding new forums. It is a mutant metastasis, against Islam which is a genetically unmodifiable cancer.

The United Nations does not solve the problems of the world, it creates them.

Band of thugs!'

(Jean Vercors: more, in French, here)

David Singer: United Nations Must End Hamas and PLO Stranglehold On Power

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

He writes:

The United Nations' effort to create a second Arab State in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – has suffered another death blow following the Palestinian Supreme Court ordering the suspension of local elections in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip scheduled for October 8.

Hamas win, 2006: BBC image

No parliamentary elections have been held since the 2006 – which Hamas won – but which the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) refused to accept.

A bitter internecine struggle saw Hamas end up governing the Gaza Strip and the PLO controlling areas “A” and “B” in Judea and Samaria.

No Palestinian presidential election has been held since PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was elected in 2005.

Hamas boycotted the last Palestinian municipal elections in 2012 – but was due to participate this year.

In the absence of a popularly elected Government exercising complete authoritative and legislative control over the Gazan and West Bank Arab populations – any prospects of reaching a binding agreement with Israel in relation to Gaza and Judea and Samaria remains an impossible pipedream.

Both the PLO and Hamas have used the slogan “End the Occupation” to demand that Israel totally withdraw from Area “C” in Judea and Samaria over which Israel exercises complete administrative and security control under the Oslo Accords.

The United Nations has repeatedly reinforced that slogan by maintaining its flawed position that building in Area “C” by Israel is illegal in international law – completely ignoring that Jews have the legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Judea and Samaria under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations very own Charter.

The United Nations has allowed the conflict between Hamas and the PLO to career out of control for the last 10 years – allowing Hamas and the PLO to:

* consolidate their power structures and political dominance within their own separate fiefdoms

* allow corruption and nepotism to become entrenched and

* pursue policies of confrontation with Israel that have proved disastrous for their respective long-suffering populations.

The United Nations has failed to insist that elections be held to enable such stranglehold on power to end and allow the people to have their say on who should govern them – the “self-determination” the United Nations has long been demanding but is being denied by Hamas and the PLO.

Ramzy Baroud – editor of PalestineChronicle.com – summed up the hopelessness of the political stalemate between Hamas and the PLO as long ago as 12 November 2013:

“In an initially pointless exercise that lasted nearly an hour, I flipped between two Palestinian television channels, Al Aqsa TV of Hamas in Gaza and Palestine TV of Fatah in the West Bank. While both purported to represent Palestine and the Palestinians, each seemed to represent some other place and some other people. It was all very disappointing.

Hamas’ world is fixated on their hate of Fatah and other factional personal business. Fatah TV is stuck between several worlds of archaic language of phony revolutions, factional rivalry and unmatched self-adoration. The two narratives are growingly alien and will unlikely ever move beyond their immediate sense of self-gratification and utter absurdity.”

Nothing has changed.

These irreconcilable differences between Fatah – the dominant faction in the PLO – and Hamas – not a member of the PLO – are still omnipresent in 2016.

photo: almanar.com.ib

The United Nations should be demanding that Hamas and the PLO end their decade-long occupation of power by allowing their respective populations the right to vote in internationally supervised elections.

“End the Occupation” would then become a meaningful metaphor rather than a meaningless signpost that continues to lead nowhere.

Of Migration & Invasion

"As a refugee, I too welcome refugees. As a Jew, I am aware of the mitzvah of welcoming the stranger.

As an adult with life experiences, I resent economic invaders who jump queues and try to force themselves into advanced economies where they can benefit from social services.

As a prudent person, I want no part of people who come to my adopted country and demand that I and my fellow citizens submit to the standards of their religion. The same group that tells us that we must not blame them for the terror plans of a small group of them but then not only fail to condemn them themselves, but appoint extremists as religious leaders.

As a father and a grandfather, I condemn parents who have failed to raise children who respond to social issues in a rational and Jewish way."

So says an elderly Holocaust survivor in Sydney, in response to the demands of a group of youngsters calling themselves "Jews for Refugees" that Australia admit all of the illegal "refugees" who have tried to enter Australia by the back door and are now in detention offshore while their applications are considered.

He is absolutely justified, and so, despite the leftist and holier-than-though thought police, are the like-minded people, Jews and non-Jews, who deplore the current invasion of the European Continent by young men of military age posing as "refugees".

The other day, Nigel Farage, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and a staunch supporter of Brexit (Britain leaving the great bureaucratic tyranny known as the European Union) unveiled a poster in support of his stance that shows a vast crowd of young male migrants pouring into Europe.   It is a genuine photograph of real migrants, not some staged event.  It reflects what has been happening across Europe in the past few months.  Yet it has been condemned (most recently by no less a personage than J.K. Rowling) as "racist" and resembling Nazi propaganda.

What balderdash.

I'm not a particular fan of Farage, but such accusations trivialise genuine racism and undermine democratic debate.

They are attempts to silence those who deplore the creeping islamisation of Europe (sobering new article by Giulio Meotti here)  and what that entails for future generations (not least for women and girls).  Oh, and for Jews.

 The estimable Douglas Murray has once again drawn attention to Europe's migration nightmare here, and how Merkel and the rest of the European "elites" have no idea how to solve this problem that is of their own making.

Also from the Gatestone Institute and The Rebel, this, from Colonel Richard Kemp.

Gleanings From Gatoff (video)

A friend, having just seen an episode of Newt's News on the Aussie Jewish program "The Shtick," is full of praise, reminding me that it's time to show some of Mr Gatoff's gleanings again.

Left-wing obsession with Israel... Israeli inventions...  BDS... Jerusalem... "Occupation"...

Some excellent segments here.

David Singer: Palestine – Elections Key To Ending Senseless Acts Of Self-Destruction

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

He writes:

Elections in the West Bank and Gaza – last held in 2006 – increasingly appear to be the key to ending the past three months of random Arab stabbing and car ramming attacks on Israel’s Jewish civilian population, armed forces, border police and security guards.

97 stabbings were recorded – including at least 14 committed by Arab children aged between 11 and 16 and another 16 between ages 17 and 21.

19 cars were deliberately driven off the roads into crowds of people waiting at bus stops or assembly points.

These attacks occurred both in Israel and the West Bank.

Most of the perpetrators were killed or apprehended committing such acts – whilst a few remain at large.

Israel explains these latest tactics as forming part of the strategy of “popular resistance” adopted at the Sixth Fatah Conference in August 2009 by the Palestinian Authority (defunct since 2013) and Fatah – the dominant party in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Such call to action resulted from continuing frustration that negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2003 Bush Roadmap had failed to create a Jew-free Palestinian Arab State throughout the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

The reality is that such a negotiated solution has always been an impossible pipe dream that could never happen.

500,000 Jews will not voluntarily vacate their homes nor abandon their livelihoods in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to satisfy these racist and totally unacceptable PLO territorial demands – a major stumbling block to successfully concluding any negotiated agreement.

At present:

1. The PLO exercises exclusive administrative control over 95 per cent of the existing West Bank Arab population who live within about 40 per cent of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B”)

2. The PLO exercises exclusive security control in Area “A” and shares security control with Israel in Area “B”

3. Israel exercises exclusive administrative and security control over Area “C” – 60 per cent of the West Bank – where 350,000 Jews and 50,000 Arabs currently reside

4. Hamas exercises complete administrative and security control in all of Gaza

5. East Jerusalem has been unilaterally declared to be part of Israel’s capital

The PLO and Hamas are still engaged in an internecine struggle extending over the last eight years to achieve complete political dominance over the other in the West Bank and Gaza whilst denying their long-suffering populations any say on who they want to govern them.

Given these unresolved political stalemates – between Israel/PLO and PLO/Hamas  – one must legitimately question why those Arabs presently sacrificing their lives murdering Jews do not choose to vent their wrath against the PLO and Hamas by demanding long overdue elections.

The PLO and Hamas – like all previous Palestinian Arab leaders over the last 100 years – have refused any compromises with the Jewish people – inciting their own people to murder Jews and kill themselves in the process to advance their documented political objective of wiping Israel off the map.

Palestinian Arabs, denied a vote for the last 10 years, need the opportunity to express their continuing support or rejection of these policies.

Elections enabling fresh political parties to emerge with alternative leaderships offering new ideas on making peace with Israel appear as far away as ever.

The sorry story begun with the PLO in 1964 and Hamas in 1987 drags on with no hope for change.

“Popular resistance” in the West Bank and Gaza demanding long-overdue elections can achieve far better results than the spate of utterly futile and senseless acts of self-destruction directed against Jews during the last three months.

Casting a live vote always beats a dead end.

A History Lesson: A hoax revealed (video)

Aha!

Hat tip: J.H.

Israeli Arab Lashes The Hotheads: "You Are Destroying The Future With Your Own Hands" (video)

Here's Israeli Arab reporter Lucy Aharish mincing no words as she condemns the current incitement against Israeli Jews by Arab and Muslim hotheads:

Hat tip: David Singer

Hamas "re-enactment video":

Bibi browns off the BBC:

Meanwhile, in London ...

Why The "Two State Solution" Has Gone Nowhere: David Singer Explains

Here, entitled "Palestine: Words Matter – But Their Meaning Matters More," is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

"Words matter," White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters this week.

Regrettably Earnest was being less than earnest in failing to point out that words can also have several meanings – which can result in people failing to actually communicate with each other because each has a different understanding of the words he is using.

As a lawyer with extensive experience in drafting agreements – I have found the most critical part in any agreement is the definition of terms used in those agreements – so that the parties are in no doubt at all as to the meaning of the words they are using.

The so-called “Two State Solution” has gone nowhere in the last 20 years for precisely this reason.

The parties to the negotiations – including America on its own and as part of the Quartet – have been talking at cross purposes without first agreeing on the meaning of the terms they are using.

Take the following terms –  and their suggested possible definitions:

1. “Palestine” – means “the territory known today as Israel, West Bank, Gaza and Jordan being the territory covered by the Mandate for Palestine dated 24 July 1922.”

2. “Palestinians” – means

(i) “those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or stayed there.

(ii) Anyone born after 1947 of a father qualifying as a Palestinian under paragraph (i) - whether inside Palestine or outside it”

3. “West Bank” – means “the term used since 1950 to refer to the territory known as “Judea and Samaria” since biblical times and comprising the territory that came under Israeli military government control in 1967”

4. Oslo Accords 1 – means Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or short Declaration of Principles(DOP) dated 13 September 1993

5. “Oslo Accords II - means Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip commonly known as Oslo II or Oslo 2 dated 25 September 1995

6. “Oslo Accords” means “Oslo Accords I” and “Oslo Accords II”

7. “Bush Roadmap” means – “the two-state solution”

8. “Two-State solution” – means “the Performance Based Roadmap To A Permanent Two-State solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict as presented in President Bush’s speech of 24 June 2003, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July 2003 and 17 September 2003 Quartet Ministerial statements.”

9. “Quartet” means “America, European Union (EU), Russia and the United Nations(UN)”

10. “Jerusalem” means “all of the area that is described in the appendix of the proclamation expanding the borders of municipal Jerusalem beginning the 20th of Sivan 5727 (June 28, 1967), as was given according to the Cities' Ordinance.”

11. “Palestinian Authority” means “The Palestinian National Authority established in 1994 following Oslo Accords 1 and disbanded on 3 January 2013”.

To the legally uninitiated this may sound like a lot of detailed, unnecessary and technical drafting – but its purpose is quite clear – to ensure when the parties to this dispute use any of the above terms  their meaning is unmistakeably clear.

The proof is in the pudding.

Do President Obama and his Press Secretary – Josh Earnest – agree with the above definitions when they utter these commonly used terms almost daily?

Do Israel’s Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agree with these definitions?

Do the media? Do you?

If indeed there is any disagreement – then the parties need to first reach agreement on their meaning – before they can even think of talking to each other.

Unless everyone is singing from the same hymn book the music will sound frightfully discordant.

"The Palestinian Armed Struggle Must Be Seen In Context As A Broader Middle Eastern Effort To Destroy Israel"

The articulate Danny Ayalon tells the truth about the balance of power in the Middle East, and why Israel should be supported:

Meanwhile, a picture that's worth a thousand words:

(Hat tips: David Singer; Barry Shaw)

As Binyamin Netanyahu said on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport prior to flying off to the United States some hours ago:

"A few days before the Fast of Esther, I am leaving for Washington on a fateful, even historic, mission. I feel that I am the emissary of all Israelis, even those who disagree with me, of the entire Jewish People. I am deeply and genuinely concerned for the security of all Israelis, for the fate of the nation, and for the fate of our people and I will do my utmost to ensure our future."

Mudar's Message To Israel (video)

Here's a video very recently uploaded by the UK-based Jordanian/Palestinian opposition leader Mudar Zahran:

Mudar Zahran's attitude towards Israel is certainly in a sharp contrast to, for example, the hatred for Israel we saw from this Jordanian MP recently.