Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)
Showing posts with label Palestinian Terrorism against Jews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palestinian Terrorism against Jews. Show all posts

Thursday, 21 February 2019

David Singer: Israel jettisons PLO as Negotiating Partner on Trump Peace Plan

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

He writes:

Israel’s decision to withhold US$138 million dollars in tax revenues collected for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – equalling the estimated annual payments made to Palestinian Arabs (or their families) carrying out random and indiscriminate attacks against Israeli civilians – marks a watershed in Israel-PLO relations.

Israel’s action will see the PLO being finally jettisoned as a possible negotiating partner on President Trump’s long-delayed peace plan – deferred yet again until after the Israeli elections in April.

The release of the Trump plan could now be further postponed as the president continues his so far unsuccessful search to find other Arab negotiators willing to replace the PLO – which had already rejected having anything to do with Trump’s plan well before Israel’s latest decision.

The law authorising the freezing of these PLO funds was passed by the Israeli parliament in July 2018 – three months after similar legislation – the Taylor Force Act – passed by the US Congress – was signed into law by President Trump.

Israel’s Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked stressed the funds withheld would be used to pay “fat salaries to murderers who are in prison”.

They would also be used to pay Palestinian Arabs imprisoned in Israeli jails for lesser crimes.
Israel’s action follows the discovery of the body of 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in the Jerusalem Forest on 7 February.

Channel 12 news reported that investigators from the Shin Bet security service and Israel Police hoped to indict Arafat Irfaiya, a 29-year-old Hebron resident, for murder in the context of a terrorist act in addition to a charge of rape.

Israel is clearly not prepared to allow this continuing wave of terror to be condoned and rewarded financially by the PLO.

Al Jazeera reported that the PLO took a very different view of Israel’s freeze:
"The Palestinians have accused the Israeli government of piracy, of coordinating this with the United States to add pressure ahead of the publication of the Trump peace plan"
The PLO had,however, been unceremoniously consigned to the diplomatic scrap heap by Trump well before Israel’s tax-revenue freeze. Trump had been given the thumbs down by the PLO after Trump had:
• Recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
 • Stopped America’s annual payment of US$350 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
• Shut down the PLO offices in Washington
 • Cancelled more than $200m in aid for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas had already dismissed any further involvement with Trump on 5 January 2019:
“We are dealing with three issues that we can not accept: the situation with the US, the situation with Israel and the situation with Hamas. The doors are closed to the US. As long as it does not retract its decisions against the Palestinian people, no Palestinian should meet with the American leadership, no matter what their role is.”
 Paying murderers and felons who kill and maim Jews has finally become the PLO’s political downfall.

Ori Ansbacher’s murder was the final tipping point for Israel to dump the PLO as a future negotiating partner after thousands of well documented random terror attacks on Israel’s civilian population over the last four years – perpetrated by individuals, many very young, inspired by vicious incitement in Palestinian social and traditional media and rewarded financially by the Palestinian leadership.

The days of “pay for slay”and fruitless negotiations with the PLO that have gone nowhere over the last 25 years are over.

Israel has well and truly closed the door on the PLO and it should remain locked and bolted.

Saturday, 2 July 2016

No Sounding the Knell of BBC Reporter's Bias

Hallel Yaffa Ariel
In an egregiously one-sided feature (that's her hallmark, as shown time and time again by BBC Watch and other BBC monitoring sites) the BBC's Yolande Knell begins:

"For retired West Bank farmer Issa Hamed, the idea that Jewish settlements are destroying a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict is a no-brainer" 

and goes on to push the Palestinian narrative in what should properly be known, as it always used to be, as the Arab-Israeli conflict, for several paragraphs.

In the course of these, Knell described (en passant, without naming) tragic Hallel Yaffa Ariel, the 13-year-old stabbed to death, by an evil teenager bent on mayhem against Jews and since praised as a shahid, while sleeping in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba, as "an American-Israeli girl".

 The fact that Hallel held American citizenship is of interest to Americans and their newspapers, and that is perfectly understandable (as seen here) but Knell's reference to it is, judging from her past form, in all likelihood merely gratuitous.

 Other BBC reports referred to Hallel as "Israeli".   The suspicion must be that Knell, in her snide propagandistic fashion, was deliberately emphasising the "settler" status of the young victim of Palestinian Arab terror in a sort of "well, what do you expect?" frame of mind. A frame of mind that would seek, though not to condone this frame of mind, then at least to excuse it in some sense as tit-for-tat ...

Of course, Binyamin Netanyahu has a response to that Knellian-type frame of mind, declaring:  
One mother ...
"In the 24 hours before the publication of the Quartet report, Palestinian terrorists stabbed and shot innocent Israelis three times, leaving two dead and others wounded. Today a young father was killed and his wife and children injured when their car was riddled with gunfire. Yesterday a 13 year-old Israeli girl was stabbed to death while she slept in her bed. Not only did the Palestinian Authority fail to condemn this gruesome murder, it referred to the murderer as a “martyr” in official media.
... and another
Palestinian praise for murderers today inspires those who will strike tomorrow. This response reflects the moral bankruptcy of the Palestinian leadership and leaves little doubt about its true intentions.
Israel therefore welcomes the Quartet’s recognition of the centrality of Palestinian incitement and violence to the perpetuation of the conflict. This culture of hatred poisons minds and destroys lives and stands as the single greatest obstacle to progress towards peace.
The report unfortunately says nothing about the payments made by the Palestinian leadership to terrorists and their families. The graver the violence, the greater the payment. This Palestinian practice must stop.
Israel shares the Quartet’s historical commitment to advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace through direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions.
In previous agreements, Israel and the Palestinians committed to discuss every difficult issue exclusively through direct, bilateral negotiations. Nevertheless, the record shows a history of repeated Palestinian rejection of offers to negotiate and compromise from Israeli governments across the political spectrum. Israel cannot negotiate peace with itself.
Israel also notes the Quartet’s concern about the military buildup in Gaza and the threat posed by Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, to both Israeli and Palestinian lives.
We regret the failure of the Quartet to address the real core of the conflict: the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people in any boundaries.
The report also perpetuates the myth that Israeli construction in the West Bank is an obstacle to peace. When Israel froze settlements, it did not get peace. When Israel uprooted every settlement in Gaza, it did not get peace. It got war.
It is troubling that the Quartet appears to have adopted the position that the presence of Jews living in the West Bank somehow prevents reaching a two-state solution. The presence of nearly 1.8 million Arabs in Israel isn’t a barrier to peace; it is a testament to our pluralism and commitment to equality.
Israel rejects any attempt to draw moral equivalence between construction and terrorism. So too do we reject the parallels suggested between the campaign of Palestinian terrorism and the violence of marginal elements in Israeli society. The former is lauded by the Palestinian leadership. The latter is utterly condemned and rejected by Israelis across the board.
 Israel will continue to strive for a genuine, negotiated peace based on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s vision of two states for two peoples. While the report includes numerous factual and policy assertions with which we take issue, Israel will discuss with the Quartet envoys ways to explore moving toward this end."
A pertinent post from Edgar Davidson here See also here
 And here

Meanwhile, for this Muslim lady, all praise

Monday, 28 December 2015

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.