Recently in Palestinian Authority Category

Fast Jihad does not want to relinquish territory to Slow Jihad. An update on this story. "Hamas strongman in Gaza rejects unity deal," by Mohammed Daragmeh for the Associated Press, February 12:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A rare public rift broke open Sunday in the usually tightly disciplined Islamic movement Hamas over a reconciliation deal that would require it to relinquish key areas of control in the Gaza Strip.

The deal, brokered by Qatar, was signed last week in Doha by Hamas' top leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, and the chief of the rival Fatah party, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The agreement is to end nearly five years of separate governments — Hamas in Gaza and Abbas in the West Bank — by establishing an interim unity government headed by Abbas that would prepare for Palestinian elections.

Senior Hamas figures in Gaza, who stand to lose most from the deal, said it was unacceptable, while top Hamas loyalists in the West Bank defended the agreement. The argument raised new questions about the ability of Abbas and Mashaal to implement the deal, seen as their best shot yet at healing the rift following Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza in 2007.

Mashaal might be able to put down the unprecedented rebellion against him, but would need the good will and cooperation of Hamas leaders in Gaza to make the agreement work.

Gaza strongman Mahmoud Zahar, one of the masterminds of the Gaza takeover, said Mashaal did not consult with others in the movement before signing the deal. Giving Abbas the post of interim prime minister is "wrong" and "strategically unacceptable," Zahar was quoted as telling the Egyptian news agency MENA on Saturday.

On Sunday, the head of the bloc of Hamas legislators in Gaza, Ismail al-Ashkar, alleged that Fatah has not carried out promised confidence building measures, such as releasing Hamas loyalists held in the West Bank.

"If the elections are to heal all our chronic, complicated problems, how can we have transparent and fair elections under such conditions," al-Ashkar said. "If this agreement is to work, we need to improve it."

Last week, al-Ashkar's parliament bloc came out against the agreement.

In contrast, Hamas lawmakers from the West Bank supported the Doha agreement across the board, according to statements and interviews published on Hamas' official website. Such public debate is rare in the secretive, tightly organized Hamas.

The criticism of the Hamas leaders in Gaza highlights the vulnerability of the Doha agreement.

Abbas needs to satisfy international demands that the interim government — to consist of politically independent technocrats — is not a front for Hamas, shunned as a terror group. If it is seen as too close to Hamas, the Palestinians would likely lose hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid.

At the same time, he risks sabotage from Hamas leaders in Gaza if he tries to strip them of too much of their power.

"If Abbas forms his government with one color, it won't work in Gaza," said Raed Naerat, a West Bank analyst close to Hamas. "The ministers should be acceptable to Hamas officials."

And Hamas is forming a unity government with Fatah, which the Obama Administration regards as the moderate faction to which Israel must make concessions in order to bring about peace. "Gaza premier: Hamas 'will never recognise Israel,'" from AFP, February 11 (thanks to Wimpy):

Hamas "will never recognise Israel," Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said Saturday in a speech in Iran that is likely to complicate Palestinian efforts to form a unity government in the teeth of opposition from the Jewish state.

"They want us to recognise the Israeli occupation and cease resistance but, as the representative of the Palestinan people and in the name of all the world's freedom seekers, I am announcing from Azadi Square in Tehran that we will never recognise Israel," Haniya said.

"The resistance will continue until all Palestinian land, including Al-Quds (Jerusalem), has been liberated and all the refugees have returned," he said.

Haniya's reiteration of Hamas's long-held stance was made on the occasion of Iran's commemoration of its 1979 Islamic revolution.

The Gaza leader spoke to an estimated crowd of 30,000 from a stage alongside Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"The Iranian people are a partner in this victory," Haniya said. "God willing, we will met you along with other Palestinians in a free Palestine, in its capital Al-Quds," he said.

Israel rejects efforts by Hamas to link up with Fatah, the secular faction of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas that runs the West Bank, to form a unity government. It views Hamas as a terrorist organisation and Iran as its sponsor and weapon supplier.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told UN envoys on Thursday that a Hamas-Fatah accord signed this week to partner in the new government "does not contribute to the advancement of peace negotiations or the well-being of the Palestinian people."...

No kidding, really?

Hamas, of course, remains openly committed to the destruction of Israel, and the propaganda from the Palestinian Authority's media outlets tells us plenty about their intentions. Obviously, this government cannot negotiate for "peace" in good faith, but the pressure will remain on Israel to compromise with an even more hostile Palestinian entity than before.

An update on this story. "Palestinians take step toward unity," from Associated Press, February 6:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) – After months of wavering, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took a decisive step Monday toward reconciliation with the Islamic militant group Hamas, a move Israel promptly warned would close the door to any future peace talks.

In a deal brokered by Qatar, Abbas will head an interim unity government to prepare for general elections in the Palestinian territories in the coming months. The agreement appeared to bring reconciliation — key to any statehood ambitions — within reach for the first time since the two sides set up rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza in 2007.

Monday's deal, signed in the Qatari capital of Doha by Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, put an end to recent efforts by the international community to revive long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the terms of Palestinian statehood. Abbas appears to have concluded that he has a better chance of repairing relations with Hamas, shunned by the West as a terror group, than reaching an agreement with Israel's hardline prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu quickly condemned the Doha deal. "It's either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can't have them both," he said in a warning to Abbas, who has enjoyed broad international support.

In moving closer to Hamas, Abbas risks losing some of that backing and hundreds of millions of dollars a year in aid.

Qatar, awash with cash from vast oil and gas reserves, assured the Palestinians that it would help limit any political and financial damages, according to Palestinian officials close to the talks.

Whether the Palestinian Authority loses any of the roughly $1 billion in foreign aid it received each year may partly depend on the interim government's political platform and Hamas' willingness to stay in the background.

The new government is to be made up of politically independent experts, according to the Doha agreement. If headed by Abbas, devoid of Hamas members and run according to his political principles, it could try to make a case to be accepted by the West. Abbas aides said they were optimistic they could win international recognition....

Now, remember, these are the "moderates." That is, of course, unless they have been taken over by ancient Aztecs, as this rhetoric would tend to imply. "Palestinian kids created as 'fertilizer,' to saturate the land with blood," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, January 31:

Dying for the sake of "Palestine" as an ideal, even for Palestinian children and youth, remains part of Palestinian discourse.

This week, official Palestinian Authority TV reported from a Fatah celebration in a refugee camp in Lebanon and chose to focus on the following slide shown at the celebration. Fatah's message was that children are created so that their blood will be "fertilizer" to saturate the land:

"Our children are our glory and honor,
they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine,
and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood."

Earlier this month, a PA-Fatah celebration in Ramallah featured a performance with the same message. In front of senior PA leaders, including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, young children and youth performed a song that included the following words:

"My pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood...
redeem you with my life."

Palestinian Media Watch has reported extensively on the PA's teaching of children to die as Martyrs for "Palestine." During the PA's terror campaign (the "Intifada," 2000-2005), the PA encouraged children to aspire for Martyrdom death as a central part of its message to children. Today, the message that children should die for "Palestine" is less prominent, but still found in PA schoolbooks and is expressed in cultural settings through song and dance. [...]

PA TV narrator: "In the refugee camp Ein Al-Hilwe [in Lebanon], a rally was held in celebration of the [47th] anniversary [of Fatah]. A political symposium was also held on the occasion of the event."

Text on slide at event:
"Our children are our honor and glory,
they were created to be fertilizer for the land of Palestine,
and for our pure land to be saturated with their blood"
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan, 24, 2012]

The following is an excerpt of a song performed by children at an event marking the 47th anniversary of the Fatah movement. PA leaders applaud kids sing "I shall saturate you with my blood... redeem you with my life":

Present at the ceremony: Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; Secretary General of the Presidential Office, Al-Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim; Secretary of the PLO Executive Council, Yasser Abd Rabbo; District Governor of Ramallah and El-Bireh Laila Ghannam; Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf.

Song by the Raji'in group (children and youth):

"How beautiful you are, my country
The love in my heart for you is great
You have brought up and educated
generation after generation,
You waited patiently and discovered your heroic children
Oh, my pure land, I shall saturate you with my blood
I shall live and die upon your green ground
Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us
I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land
Your embrace warms us
Your ground satiates us, your goodness satisfies us
I shall redeem you with my life, oh my land
Your embrace warms us"

Applause by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Secretary General of the President's office Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim and PLO Secretary General Yasser Abd Rabbo.
[Live PBC broadcast from Ramallah, PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 5, 2012]

But deep down, they really want peace! Once again, the "moderate" guys are caught acting less than moderately. In the case of the PA, "moderate" means "not as bad as Hamas," but the distinction is often shown to be largely wishful thinking. "Palestinian TV airs show praising Fogel family murderer," by Avi Issacharoff for Haaretz, January 30:

Palestinian television aired an interview with the relatives of the Fogel family murderers earlier this month, praising the two cousins convicted with the brutal attack as "heroes."

The broadcast was aired as part of a weekly show on the Palestinian state-run station called "For You," which focuses on Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

The show featured the aunt and mother of Hakim Awad, who along with his cousin Amjad was convicted of brutally stabbing to death five Fogel family members in an attack on their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar on the night of March 11, 2011.

Hakim Awad's mother sent her regards to her son, proudly describing him as the perpetrator of the Itamar attack and that he was sentenced to 5 consecutive life sentences.

Awad's aunt then proceeded to describe her nephew as a "hero and a legend."

The unusual broadcast was reported by the Israel-based media watchdog organization Palestinian Media Watch

Late last year Amjad Awad was convicted of the murdering Ehud and Ruth Fogel, along with three of their young child-ren, Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months old, before fleeing the scene. His cousin Hakim was convicted a month earlier. Both men were sentenced to five consecutive life sentences by an IDF court.

But... but... that's where the "moderate" guys are. "Climate of intolerance in West Bank, activists say," by Diaa Hadid for the Associated Press, January 30 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian atheist who was jailed and beaten last year for expressing anti-Muslim views on Facebook and in blogs says Palestinian security forces are harassing him again, despite government pledges to respect human rights.

The blogger's renewed ordeal is part of a persistent climate of intolerance of dissent in the territories controlled by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, say human rights activists. They say they've seen improvements, including a marked decrease in the mistreatment of detainees, but that Abbas' security forces, who are partially funded by the West, must halt harassment and arbitrary detention.

Government spokesman Ghassan Khatib acknowledged occasional lapses, but said that in the past two years, "there's been great progress and success in reducing abuses."

Such promises mean little to atheist blogger Walid Husayin, who has lived in fear of the security forces since being released from a nine-month prison stint last summer.

"I'm sick and tired. My life has come to a halt," the 28-year-old Husayin said in a phone interview from his home in the northern West Bank town of Qalqiliya.

Since his release on bail, he has been picked up several times by security agents and held for days at a time. In one of those detentions, he was beaten with cables and forced to stand in a painful position on empty cans, said Husayin, the son of a Muslim preacher.

Interrogators smashed his two computers and demanded that he stop expressing his views, he said.

Activists from three rights organizations said they witnessed an increase in arbitrary detentions in recent months, including calling in "troublemakers" for repeated interrogation, but said they hadn't yet collated 2011 figures.

Those targeted include loyalists of the Islamic militant Hamas, Abbas' political rival, and supporters of Hezb al-Tahrir, or the "Liberation Party," a puritan Islamic movement considered apolitical.

The increased pressure on dissent coincides with pro-democracy uprisings of the Mideast Arab Spring, but it's not clear if there is a direct link. Anti-government demonstrations in the West Bank usually draw just a few dozen or few hundred people, tiny compared to protests that toppled rulers in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia over the past year.

There appears to be little popular sympathy for those targeted in the crackdown, said Jamil Rabah, an independent Palestinian pollster.

In Gaza, ruled by the Islamic Hamas since a violent takeover in 2007, the Islamists appear to dealing even more harshly with critics, particularly on religious matters.

In both territories, those who violate social norms find themselves in the crosshairs. In Gaza, Hamas recently banned a televised amateur singing contest on modesty grounds because it included female contestants.

In the West Bank, Palestinian-American comedian Maysoon Zayid said her husband was roughed up and lightly hurt last fall after she mocked Palestinian officials in a skit.

Witnesses identified the assailants as plainclothes security men, said Zayid, a contributor to "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on Current TV, a U.S. cable show.

She said it was the first attempt at intimidation after years of West Bank performances.

"I feel like the Palestinian Authority is going backward," said Zayid, a resident of Cliffside Park, New Jersey. "That is not the state I am fighting for."...

Of course. Nothing uttered frankly to a Muslim audience that has been picked up with alarm by non-Muslims has ever been taken "in context." That only proves that the message changes with the audience.

As Mohammed Hussein noted in his speech, the hadith that says "there is a Jew behind me, come kill him," comes from hadith collections considered reliable by Muslims, including Sahih ("sound," "reliable") Bukhari 4.52.177: "Allah's Apostle said, The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him'."

That doesn't stop our occasional comment-box apologists from throwing these collections under the bus and claiming that Islam depends only on the Qur'an, so these ahadith don't matter. In reality, the Qur'an-only movement is a small set of dissenters. "Israeli leader condemns Palestinian Muslim cleric," by Diaa Hadid for the Associated Press, January 22:

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinians' top Muslim cleric faced sharp Israeli criticism Sunday for a speech in which he quoted a religious text that includes passages about killing Jews in an end-of-days struggle.

Mufti Mohammed Hussein's comments came at a political gathering of supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said his remarks were taken out of context and that he didn't incite people to kill Jews. But by speaking at the venue, Hussein appeared to be linking the battle to the conflict with Israel.

"The hour of resurrection will not come until you fight the Jews," Hussein told the gathering, citing a hadith, or saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. "The Jews will hide behind stones and trees. But the trees and the stones will call: oh Muslim, oh servant of God, there is a Jew hiding behind me so come and kill him."...

The mufti delivered his three-minute speech on Jan. 7 in an Arab neighborhood of east Jerusalem during celebrations of the 47th anniversary of the Palestinian movement Fatah, said Itamar Marcus of Palestine Media Watch, an Israeli watchdog group that tracks incitement.

Marcus' group posted excerpts of the speech on YouTube last week. The comments drew angry reactions from Israelis on Sunday.

"We're talking about a heinous offense that all nations of the world must condemn,"

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement sent to reporters by text message. He asked the Israeli attorney general to launch an investigation.

It is unclear what authority Israel would have since Hussein is appointed to his position by the Palestinian president. There was no immediate comment from Abbas' office.
Hussein, who is based in Jerusalem, said his comments were taken out of context.

"I was speaking about the final signs of the day of resurrection," Hussein said. "I did not incite, and I did not call for killing. We are not, at present, at the end of days."

Even if that were true, passages like these inform how Muslims regard Jews in the present day.

The Quran, Islam's holy book, offers contradictory attitudes toward Jews and Christians. There are texts that enshrine tolerance and respect for other faiths, while others are spiked with hatred and incitement.

See next: Naskh, or abrogation. Search our archives. While the AP is teaching us about religion, here is one giant leap of moral equivalence:

Some extremist rabbis also have found passages in Jewish texts that they believe justifies violence against the Palestinians....

This ought to complicate Hamas' attempts to reconcile with Fatah, though, as this report notes, it could also conceivably result in an even more virulent jihadist conglomerate with which Israel would be expected to negotiate. "Hamas, Islamic Jihad debate joining forces," from Agence France-Presse, January 18:

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main Palestinian Islamist movements, are holding talks about merging their two factions, sources from both movements said Tuesday.

They could call it Even More Islamic Jihad.

At a meeting with top officials from Islamic Jihad, Gaza's Hamas-affiliated prime minister, Ismail Haniya, called for "opening a serious dialogue to achieve the merger of the two movements," his office said in a statement.

Islamic Jihad confirmed that talks to merge the two factions were already underway.

"An in-depth dialogue has actually begun, both internally and externally, with the aim of uniting," Islamic Jihad spokesman Daud Shihab told AFP, referring to the group's leadership which, like Hamas, is based in both Gaza and Damascus.

All previous attempts to merge the two Islamist movements had ended in failure, Shihab noted.

He indicated that the current talks were taking place "at the highest level" among the leaders of both factions in Gaza and Damascus, as well as among Islamist prisoners currently being held in Israeli jails.

Uniting the two movements would be "in the interest of both the Palestinian cause and the future of the Palestinian liberation movement, particularly in light of the Arab Spring," Shihab said.

The latest statements represent the first time for Hamas and Jihad to speak publicly about merging.

The two factions have long held opposing views on government, with Jihad boycotting the last Palestinian elections in 2006 that were swept by Hamas.

The initiative to explore a merger comes as Hamas and its Fatah rival, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, struggle to implement a reconciliation deal signed in April 2011 that has made little progress on the ground.

There are also moves to reform the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which is internationally recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, to allow Hamas and Islamic Jihad to join it.

It also comes in the wake of a series of electoral successes for Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia following the political upheavals brought on by the Arab Spring.

How did the Mufti Muhammad Hussein escape being soundly rebuked by all the tolerance-minded peaceful "moderates" of Fatah?

"PA's highest religious authority, the Mufti, at Fatah event: Muslims' destiny is to kill Jews," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, January 15:

Last week, the principal Palestinian Authority religious leader, the Mufti Muhammad Hussein, presented the killing of Jews by Muslims as a religious Islamic goal. At an event celebrating the 47th anniversary of the founding of Fatah, he cited the Hadith (Islamic tradition attributed to Muhammad) saying that the Hour of Resurrection will not come until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them:

"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

Palestinian Media Watch reported regularly during the PA terror campaign (Intifada, 2000-2005) on the repeated use of this Hadith by PA clerics on official PA TV to motivate Palestinians to terror attacks, preaching that Muslims had an Islamic obligation to kill Jews. The fact that the Mufti quotes this now indicates that this may have remained part of the PA's religious establishment's teachings, even though it is less frequently promoted on PA TV.

The last time official PA TV broadcast a sermon during which this Hadith calling to kill Jews was quoted was in 2010.

The years of PA promotion of killing Jews and PA religious leaders' citing this Hadith to justify it, may have contributed to the high acceptance of it in PA society. A poll sponsored by the Israel Project last year found that 73% of Palestinians "believe" this Hadith. [July 2011, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.]

The moderator who introduced the Mufti at the Fatah event last week reiterated another Islamic belief; that the Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith."

The Mufti did not distance himself from this hate statement that Islam is in a religious war with the Jews, but added to it that Islam's goal is to kill Jews....

Not "Zionists," but "Jews." Remember, the PA guys are the "moderate" guys, the ones getting U.S. aid. "PA Sermon in the West Bank: 'Every Evil and Catastrophe' in the Whole World 'Is Caused by the Jews'," from MEMRI, January 6:

Preacher: Oh servants of Allah, every evil and catastrophe on the land of Palestine – moreover, in the whole world – is caused by the Jews. They generate civil strife with their clandestine handiwork, their despicable texts, their bitter hearts, and their abominable intentions.

Heavy traffic? Jews. Bad hair day? Jews. Not enough marshmallows in your Lucky Charms? Jews. Now you know. And knowing is half the jihad.

Allah said: "Whenever they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it, but they strive to do mischief on earth. Allah loves not those who do mischief." This is the history of the Jews. Many a covenant have they violated. Many a prophet have they slayed. […]

That's Qur'an 5:64 he's quoting: "The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so. Nay, but both His hands are spread out wide in bounty. He bestoweth as He will. That which hath been revealed unto thee from thy Lord is certain to increase the contumacy and disbelief of many of them, and We have cast among them enmity and hatred till the Day of Resurrection. As often as they light a fire for war, Allah extinguisheth it. Their effort is for corruption in the land, and Allah loveth not corrupters."

Remember, these are supposed to be the "moderate" guys. With "moderates" like these, who needs "extremists?" "Abbas appoints released terrorist as advisor," from the Jerusalem Post, January 2:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently appointed as an advisor one of the security prisoners released in exchange for Gilad Schalit this past October.

Muhammad Darma, who was the commander of the Palestinian Authority Presidential Guard security unit Force 17 under Yasser Arafat, was imprisoned in Israel for six years for involvement in a terror attacks.

Darma's new position in the Palestinian Authority will be as advisor to the PA president on municipal affairs.

The appointed was made by presidential decree, which also included a promotion to the rank of general in light of his time spent in Israeli prison.

Darma was arrested in 2006 near Ramallah for his involvement planning in terrorist attacks that killed Israelis. During Operation Defensive Shield at the height of the Second Intifada in 2002, he was believed to have personally fired an RPG at an IDF tank.

One of the greatest obstacles the PA and Hamas face is that the archaeological evidence does not line up with Islam's revisionist account of history, which appropriates the major figures of Judaism and Jesus himself as prophets and messengers of Islam. Islam's claim on the territory depends on that, and on Muhammad's "night journey" to what was initially an unnamed "farthest mosque." Of course, that doesn't mean they don't try to erase history to suit their purposes, even changing their own story, as this commentary notes.

We are not aware, however, that the Rabbi Abraham Cooper who authored this commentary is an "anti-" Ibrahim Hooper specially engineered by the Global Zionist Conspiracy Laboratories.

"Beyond Christmas and Hannukah -- Who Will Protect the Faithful?" by Rabbi Abraham Cooper for Fox News, December 30:

This year’s overlap of Christmas and Chanukah brought startlingly different, but ultimately connected, developments overseas. In Nigeria, word of five suicide bombs by an extremist Muslim sect murdering and maiming Christians at prayer, and wiping out whole families, cast a pall on many of the faithful. Meanwhile, archaeologists working in Ir David—the ancient neighborhood adjacent to Jerusalem’s Old City Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock, announced a discovery validating the historicity of a heritage central to Jews but also important to Christians.

Bearing two Aramaic words meaning “pure for G-d,” a rare, coin-sized clay seal was found not far from the site of the Beit Hamikdash – Holy Temple where Judaism’s holiest rituals were practiced until it was destroyed by the Romans two thousand years ago.

The seal of ritual certification was similar to the seal on a jar of untainted oil that the Maccabees--heroes of the Hanukah story--were so desperately looking for when they secured the Holy Temple from the occupying Greeks. Such seals were likely in use when Jewish pilgrims came to visit the Holy Temple. Such discoveries deepen the connection to the past for today’s religious pilgrims to Jerusalem, Christians as well as Jews.

For Jewish families, the seal’s discovery also serves as another concrete confirmation of Judaism’s near-miraculous continuity and of our people’s millennial-old link to David’s City.

Unfortunately, Palestinians loathe such discoveries. Because the seal with the words, “pure for G-d”, also debunk the lies of a global campaign of religious-and-historical Denial spawned by the Palestinian leadership. Simply put, the Palestinians insist that today’s Jews and have no authentic connection to the Holy Land dating back to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or to the biblical Prophets and Kings of Israel.

Indeed, the serial denial of the Jewish people’s legitimacy is the one core issue that Palestinian President Mohammed Abbas and the Muslim Fundamentalist Hamas can agree upon.

Even as Abbas steps up his efforts to merge his Fatah Movement with the Muslim Fundamentalist Hamas—whose founding Charter fuses traditional religious anti-Semitism with the secular, genocidal Jew hatred of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion—Abbas’ Palestinian Authority has accelerated its broader campaign to expunge Jewish history and identity from the Holy Land.

Leveraging the voting muscle of Arab and Muslim states at the UN, a committee of the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), recast as a mosque, the iconic Rachel’s Tomb near Bethlehem—recognized by Christians as well as Muslim for centuries as a venerable Jewish site.

The Palestinians’ historical amnesia about Jewish roots also extends to archaeological evidence of King David and King Solomon’s ties to Holy City. This is a radical break from the Islamic past when Muslim recognition of the Jews’ sacred connection to Jerusalem and its holy sites was traced back to the Caliph Omar in the seventh century and extended all the way up to 1953 when the Supreme Muslim Council’s guide to Al-Haram Al- Sharif (The Temple Mount) declared: “It’s [sic] identity with the site of Solomon’s Temple is beyond dispute.”

In his ‘historic’ speech before the U.N. General Assembly seeking international recognition for a unilaterally declared Palestinian State, used the world stage to invoke the ‘Holy Land’ as the place from where the prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven and where Jesus was born, but pointedly omitted any reference to Abraham, Moses, King David or Jeremiah. Not a hint of censure from the diplomats representing 192 nations.

Hand-in-hand with the historic amnesia, is the Palestinian Authority promotion of classic anti-Semitism. Evidence the recent article, published in the UNESCO-funded Palestinian youth magazine, Zayzafouna. In it, a ten-year-old Palestinian girl is purported to have had a dream in which Hitler told her, “Yes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” Brought to international attention by Palestinian Media Watch, nothing was done about the article until a protest by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the United States ambassador, forced UNESCO to end its funding of the magazine. But the hatred remains— fuelled by a mixture of hateful secular and religious ideologies.

As events in 2011 proved, the international community’s silence over campaigns of religion-inspired hatred, won’t bring peace to Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land, or restore Christmas as a public holiday in Gaza, nor protect Copts in Egypt, Catholics in Nigeria, or Christians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Silence only fuels the spread of more toxic bigotry in the name of G-d.

We can only hope and pray that in 2012, democratic governments, international agencies and NGOs will finally find the step up and construct a firewall of truth and civility to protect the faithful and their right to a future.

Surely it's been said before, but: with "moderates" like these, who needs "extremists?" "PA TV glorifies violence: 'Boom out loud, oh voice of the machine gun… Oh AK-47, make sounds of joy,'" by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, December 15:

A new Palestinian Authority TV music video honoring Arafat glorifies Fatah use of violence and venerates the rifle. Last month it was broadcast 7 times on official PA TV.

The song speaks of Arafat's life and idolizes him as a model of violence, revolution, and war. It celebrates through words and visuals the violence of the rifle: "Boom out loud, oh voice of the machine gun... Oh AK-47, make sounds of joy."

The following is the full transcript of the song:

"Engrave on the rifle butt the symbol of Fatah's Al-Asifa [unit]
My trigger makes sounds of joy to the Elder (Arafat)
while the rifle sounds aloud
Boom out loud, oh voice of the machine gun,
Yasser [Arafat] lives inside us
[Despite] the day (of his death) on Nov. 11,
the [Palestinian] cause has not died
He is present inside us as an idea and as light,
a fire burning in [our] chest
He [Arafat] taught the whole world how to revolt.
Yasser - symbol of freedom
Oh Elder, I swear by [your] uniform and your keffiya
Oh bullets of the defiant, [your] shot fights 100 [men]
He lived and died in an atmosphere of war,
he crossed the world from east to west
Mahmoud Abbas is on the same path
when it comes to [our] state and identity
We fired the rifle, we faced the storm
We responded to the cannon with a pistol
Using stones, we ignited a revolution and wrote [history], oh Fatah men
On the rifle butt, we have engraved [Fatah's] symbol
On the grip, we have engraved "Arafat"
On the top cover we have inscribed the history of the free
On the barrel - the name of the homeland
The flash-suppressor ignited and burst
Here it is, oh rifle sight
The state is only a few meters away
Oh action-spring, receive and shoot [bullets] continuously
Change the magazine - there are hundreds [of them]
Load it into the chamber
Oh AK-47, make sounds of joy and salute the Elder (Arafat)"
[PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 16, 2011]

It is not at all surprising to see the Palestinian Authority using the Palestinian Investment Fund for pet projects, except for how brazenly it has tapped the fund for this, of all purposes. The PA should be held accountable by all contributors, and a broader investigation of its use of aid is certainly warranted.

"Congressmen ask for probe into PA use of US funds," by Lahav Harkov for the Jerusalem Post, November 24:

Florida Democratic Congressman Ted Deutsch and New York Democratic Congressman Steve Israel have asked US Comptroller-General Gene Dodaro to investigate the Palestinian Authority’s use of American funding.

The request this week came three weeks after MK Moshe Matalon (Israel Beiteinu) had sent a letter to the budget committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives, informing them of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s policy of paying freed Palestinian prisoners who had been convicted of murder $5,000 and building them new homes.

Matalon received a copy of the congressmen’s letter on Thursday.

“Many of the released prisoners were convicted of orchestrating and carrying out Hamas-sponsored terrorist attacks in Israel, including the bombing of a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed 21 people, the attack on a Netanya hotel that killed 29 people, and the bombing of a Sbarro Pizzeria that killed 15 people,” Deutsch and Israel wrote.

The two congressmen explained to Dodaro that they “are troubled by reports of President Abbas’ use of Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) funds to provide housing for these convicted terrorists.”

According to the letter, the US contributed to the PIF after PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad founded it in 2002 “under a framework of transparency and accountability.” However, recently there has been “ambiguity surrounding the amount of US taxpayer dollars contributed to the PIF,” Deutsch and Israel wrote.

Aside from the issue of Abbas building houses for convicted terrorists, Deutsch and Israel “are concerned about the increasing lack of transparency for the PIF as well as reports that Prime Minister Fayyad is no longer overseeing the fund and that Hamas has taken control of PIF assets in Gaza.”

The letter also requested that the US Government Accountability Office, which Dodaro heads, investigate whether US Economic Support Funds (ESF) given to the PA were used to fund Abbas’s trips around the world “on his misguided attempt to unilaterally declare statehood at the United Nations... efforts that are in direct contravention of US policy.”

The congressmen said US ESF should not be used “to fund Mr. Abbas’ extensive lobbying to achieve a Palestinian state by any means other than direct negotiations with Israel.”

They added that “the US must be unequivocally committed to ensuring that American taxpayer dollars are used to serve the interests of the US and our allies around the world.”

In his letter three weeks ago, Matalon had written that Abbas was rewarding “unrepentant terrorists.”

“At the ceremony Abbas held [in honor of released prisoners] in Ramallah, he is reported as having praised these individuals for their ‘courage and sacrifice,’” the Israel Beiteinu MK wrote. “The atrocities referred to by Abbas as acts of ‘courage’... include the murders of scores of innocents, including women and children.”

He continued: “I feel it incumbent upon myself to present these facts to you, as a fellow parliamentarian, not as interference in your parliamentary activities, but rather in order to ensure that the full facts are before you, as you deliberate on whether to continue extending financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority.”

This pledge follows earlier promises of thousands of dollars in grants, according to this report. Where is he getting the money for it?

It also follows praise from Abbas for the former prisoners' "steadfastness in the face of Israeli arrogance." Remember, this is the "moderate" guy. "Abbas to build homes for prisoners released for Schalit," by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, November 5:

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to build houses for the Palestinian prisoners who were released in the Gilad Schalit exchange deal between Israel and Hamas.

The new housing project will be funded by the Palestinian Investment Fund, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Embezzlement:

The fund was established in 2003 as an independent investment company with the aim of strengthening the Palestinian economy through key investments.

The announcement came during a meeting between Abbas and some of the released prisoners in his office in Ramallah on Saturday.

Earlier, Abbas decided to award the prisoners financial grants of several thousand dollars for each inmate.

The prisoners will receive up to $5,000 from the PA and $2,000 from the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.

During the meeting with the prisoners, Abbas said that the issue of the prisoners was at the top of the PA’s list of priorities. He said that PA negotiators raise the issue in all meetings and forums.

Abbas hailed the prisoners’ “steadfastness in the face of Israeli arrogance.”

He also repeated his claim that former prime minister Ehud Olmert had promised to release Fatahaffiliated [sic] prisoners after the release of Schalit in order to strengthen the PA.

High culture: The infamous Palestinian art exhibit celebrating the Sbarro pizzeria jihad mass murder

This makes sense. After all, the Palestinians have contributed so much to world culture: children's shows celebrating jihad murder, jihad/martyrdom suicide bombers blowing people up on buses and in restaurants -- it's a veritable cornucopia of cultural and artistic achievement. "Palestine becomes member of UN cultural body," by Sarah DiLorenzo for the Associated Press, October 31:

PARIS (AP) — Palestine became a full member of the U.N. cultural and educational agency Monday, in a highly divisive move that the United States and other opponents say could harm renewed Mideast peace efforts.

U.S. lawmakers had threatened to withhold roughly $80 million in annual funding to UNESCO if it approved Palestinian membership. The United States provides about 22 percent of UNESCO's funding.

Huge cheers went up in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization after delegates approved the membership in a vote of 107-14 with 52 abstentions. Eighty-one votes were needed for approval in a hall with 173 UNESCO member delegations present.

"Long Live Palestine!" shouted one delegate, in French, at the unusually tense and dramatic meeting of UNESCO's General Conference....

Monday's vote is definitive. The membership formally takes effect when Palestine signs UNESCO's founding charter.

The U.S. ambassador to UNESCO, David Killion, said Monday's vote will "complicate" U.S. efforts to support the agency. The United States voted against the measure.

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan, called the vote a tragedy.

"UNESCO deals in science, not science fiction," he said. "They forced on UNESCO a political subject out of its competence."...

He complains that they have been "punished" for that mistake. In other words, the message is unchanged: they were surprised they lost the war, and they still want a do-over. "Palestinian leader: Arabs erred on 1947 partition," by Amy Teibel for the Associated Press, October 28:

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Palestinian president, in a remarkable assessment delivered on Israeli TV, said Friday the Arab world erred in rejecting the United Nations' 1947 plan to partition Palestine into a Palestinian and a Jewish state.

The Palestinian and Arab refusal to accept a U.N. plan to partition the then-British-controlled mandate of Palestine sparked widespread fighting, then Arab military intervention after Israel declared independence the following year. The Arabs lost the war.

"It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Channel 2 TV in a rare interview to the Israeli media. "But do they (the Israelis) punish us for this mistake 64 years?

Abbas also addressed his negotiations with former Israeli leader Ehud Olmert, now in the spotlight because of the publication of the memoirs of former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Rice backs Israel's account that Olmert made a peace offer that was rejected, while Palestinians say that talks never actually reached a point where a firm offer was on the table....

Hypocrisy. "Palestinian envoy to Canada recalled," by Rob Gillies for the Associated Press, October 24:

TORONTO (AP) — The Palestinian Authority recalled their envoy to Canada this month for posting a link on twitter that included an anti-Semitic video.

Linda Sobeh Ali posted a tweet this month with a link to a YouTube video featuring an emotionally distressed Palestinian girl shouting a poem in Arabic titled "I am Palestinian."

The English subtitles on the video include a passage where millions are called upon "destroy the Jews."

Joseph Lavoie, a spokesman for Canada's foreign affairs minister, said Monday it was a serious enough matter for the Palestinian Authority that they recalled Sobeh Ali.

"This video is completely unacceptable and offensive as it calls for the death of Jews," Lavoie said.

Riad Malki, the Palestinian Authority's foreign minister, speaking in Ramallah, said the envoy posted the link thinking it was a "normal national poem."

"We asked her to leave Canada because we didn't want to create any problems," he said.

According to Malki, the "Jewish lobby and Jewish institutions" in Canada complained to the Canadian government. The envoy "went back to the poem and there was something wrong with the translation." The phrase translated in the English subtitles as "destroy the Jews" was actually "to kill the soul of Zionism."...

Oh, all is well, then!

What much of the West is tragically unaware of, with major policy implications, is the difference between Fatah and the PLO as they address their Arabic-speaking audience and Fatah and the PLO as they address their Western audiences. And still, people blame Israel for the stalemate in the "peace process."

"Abbas greets newly released Palestinian prisoners: You are freedom fighters," from Haaretz, October 18:

The Gaza Strip and West Bank gave a jubilant welcome on Tuesday to hundreds of Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held for five years by the enclave's Islamist rulers, Hamas.

Fire-crackers, klaxons and cheering carloads of flag-waving young men raised the noise level steadily in Gaza city as thousands converged on a central square for a mass rally with speeches scheduled by Hamas leaders and well-known militants just liberated in the swap mediated by Egypt.

In Ramallah, thousands packed into the headquarters of the Palestinian presidency to greet prisoners released into the West Bank. President Mahmoud Abbas and Hassan Youssef, a senior member of the Hamas group, both delivered speeches in a rare show of national unity.

"We thank God for your return and your safety," Abbas said, greeting the prisoners. "You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland." He also said that Israel had promised him to free more prisoners following the two-stage swap. It was the first mention of such a release.

"We hope soon to see [Marwan] Barghouti and [Ahmed] Saadat, as well as every prisoner freed," Abbas told the thousands of cheering supporters and relatives, referring to two high-profile prisoners who Israel had refused to release.

Yousef said the deal "gives the Palestinians hope that more prisoners can be released."

Gaza declared a national holiday and schools were closed.

The road from the Egyptian border with Egypt was turned into a military zone and sealed off. Dozens of masked, heavily-armed men of the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam militia waited in convoy to escort buses carrying the freed men north to Gaza city.

"I think the deal represents something great for the Palestinian people. Those who are still in jail are happy for those who have been released." said Hamas deputy leader in exile, Moussa Abu Marzouk, who greeted prisoners arriving in Egypt from Israel.

Patriotic songs blared from loudspeakers as prisoners arrived to a heroes' welcome at the Rafah crossing. Some kissed the soil as they arrived. Some were carried on the shoulders of happy relatives. Women ululated and men chanted Allahu akbar [God is greatest].

Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, joined scores of officials to greet freed prisoners coming in from Egypt, along with hundreds of family members impatient for the big reunion.

Haniyeh kissed their foreheads, paying special respect to Yehya Al-Sinwar, a top Hamas security strategist who spent 23 years in jail, and his deputy Rawhi Mushtaha who was also serving a life sentence.

"Thank you to the forces of the resistance for returning us as liberated heroes," said one prisoner.

In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians waving flags of Palestinian parties including Hamas and the Fatah movement led by Abbas were gathered over the course of the morning at the crossing where they expected Israel to set the prisoners free, dancing, singing and playing national songs all morning.

In Gaza, a densely-packed sprawl of low-rise concrete on the Mediterranean coast in sight of Israel, thousands gathered for a mass rally around a stage backed by a mural bearing portraits of top militants who were not released, with the words: "We will not forget you."

The web of electricity cables slung over Gaza's main streets was decorated with the green flags of Hamas. The streets were full of men in pick-ups, convertibles and rickshaw trucks waving the brightly-colored banners of Gaza's militant factions.

A wall painting lampooned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, depicting him with his face ground into the dirt by the boot of a gunman, signing a paper with words "swap deal".

Hamas, whose gunmen seized Shalit in a cross-border raid in 2006, has declared the prisoner exchange a victory over Israel and a vindication of its policy of armed resistance over the peace-seeking policy of Abbas.

Israel is setting free 1,027 Palestinians in return for the liberty of Shalit. Some have spent 30 years behind bars for violent attacks against Israel and its occupation of land taken in the 1967 Six-Day War.

More than 100 of the 477 prisoners released in the first phase of the exchange were taken to the West Bank. The rest were brought to Gaza, apart from 41 who were due to fly out from Cairo to exile in Turkey, Syria or Qatar.

Hamas and other Gaza militant groups have vowed to seize more Israeli hostages for exchange until all 5,000 Palestinians still in Israeli prisons are released.

"The rest of the prisoners must be released because if they are not released in a normal way they will be released in other ways," said Hamas deputy leader Abu Marzouk.

"... under the accepted principles of international law going back to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, there are four prerequisites for statehood: a permanent population; defined territory; effective government; and a capacity to enter into relations with other states."

The contradictions on the Palestinian Authority's treatment of its "permanent population" are particularly glaring, and revealing of its intentions. The PA wants UN recognition to leapfrog them over those issues, imposing a resolution on the PA's terms. More on this story. "Foreign Ministry issues legal arguments against PA UN bid," from the Jerusalem Post, October 11:

With Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas circling the globe drumming up support from UN Security Council countries for his statehood bid, the Foreign Ministry circulated a document to its representatives abroad this week, spelling out legal arguments against the move.

The document, written by the Foreign Ministry’s legal department at the behest of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, is to serve as a basis for Israel’s envoys in their continued efforts to poke holes into the Palestinians’ argument that they are ready for statehood.

Abbas is currently in Colombia, and on his way to Portugal, to lobby those countries to support his bid in the Security Council.

“The Palestinian request for membership in the United Nations, which was submitted to the Secretary-General on September 23, 2011, implies that a Palestinian state already, somehow, exists,” read the document, obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

“The request asked to build upon this supposedly existing status to request membership in the United Nations. However, based on both traditional and contemporary legal and tangible tests, it is clear that while one day the Palestinian state could come into existence, today the Palestinian entity has not achieved the status of statehood.”

The five-page paper states that under the accepted principles of international law going back to the Montevideo Convention of 1933, there are four prerequisites for statehood: a permanent population; defined territory; effective government; and a capacity to enter into relations with other states.

Regarding its permanent population, the paper stated that the Palestinians have “been ambiguous about which group of people would constitute the permanent population of their state.”

“The Palestinians seem to be seeking to establish a new state, and at the same time preserve the status of Palestinians living in the diaspora as so-called ‘refugees,’” the document continued.

“As part of this effort, they have presented contradictory positions, wanting to continue to represent all Palestinians on refugee-related claims, but, at the same time, stating that they do not intend to grant citizenship to members of the Palestinian diaspora.”

They are to be unleashed into Israel upon imposition of the "right of return." That is why the PA will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state: they have other plans.

According to the document, this is an “internal contradiction” that necessarily leads to ambiguity on the population issue since a state can only represent the claims of its own citizens.

The document cited a report in Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper in which Abdullah Abdullah, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, said the future Palestinian state would not be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees – even refugees living in the West Bank and Gaza.

As to the prerequisite of effective government, the document said it would be difficult to argue that the Palestinians presently meet the most basic test of effective governmental control of the territories they are claiming within their state.

“Hamas continues to exercise full control of the Gaza Strip,” the document read. “Despite the signing by Fatah and Hamas of a so-called ‘Reconciliation Agreement’ in May 2011, nothing has changed in practice.

Palestinian Authority leadership, which submitted the UN request for membership, is completely excluded from responsibility in Gaza and retains no control in Gaza.”

One glaring example of this lack of effective control is that Abbas himself has been unable to visit Gaza since Hamas seized control there in 2007.....

There is more.

Remember, Fatah is supposed to be the moderate group with which the U.S. can negotiate. "'US is #1 Palestinian enemy as it backs Israeli oppression,'" by Khaled Abu Toameh for the Jerusalem Post, October 9 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

The US is the number one enemy of the Palestinians because it supports Israeli “oppression” against the Palestinians, Tawfik Tirawi, a senior member of the Fatah Central Committee, said on Sunday.

Tirawi, former commander of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Force in the West Bank, also said that Fatah has not abandoned the armed struggle option against Israel.

“Fatah hasn’t thrown the rifle aside,” Tirawi told thousands of university students during a rally in Hebron.

Tirawi’s anti-US remarks came only days after a Palestinian protester tossed a shoe at US diplomats who arrived in Ramallah to attend a cultural event.

The Palestinians were protesting against US President Barack Obama’s refusal to back the PA’s statehood bid at the UN and US threats to cut off financial aid to the PA.

Tirawi also criticized the PA leadership for refusing to allow Palestine TV to use the term “Israeli enemy” in its broadcasts.

“Those who prevent the use of the term ‘Israeli enemy’ are acting in violation of national awareness and the principles of people under occupation,” he argued. “They must go away.”...

Rewarding the PA through inaction would only encourage them to stick to their guns (pun intended) on the statehood bid. "Palestinians say freeze in US aid taking effect," by Mohammad Daraghmeh for the Associated Press, October 3:

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Palestinian officials said Monday that the U.S. has suspended West Bank development projects worth tens of millions of dollars after Congress froze funding to dissuade the Palestinians from seeking U.N. recognition of an independent state.

It's the first concrete sign of repercussions for the Palestinians' decision to defy Washington on the issue.

Hassan Abu Libdeh, the Palestinian economics minister, said he was informed Monday by officials of USAID, the U.S. government's foreign aid agency, that two projects — worth $55 million and $26 million — were being put on hold for lack of funding. One supported the development of the Palestinian private sector and the other aimed to improve the investment environment, Abu Libdeh said, adding that 50 people involved were laid off last week and 200 others would follow by November. Other ministries also reported USAID projects were in jeopardy, including an $85 million five-year plan to improve Palestinian health services.

Where are the Saudis on this project?

USAID officials confirmed some programs were affected by the Congressional hold, but would not give details. "Ongoing programs will continue until funds are exhausted," said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

Palestinian officials denounced the move as counterproductive to Mideast peace efforts and said this would not deter them from seeking full U.N. membership for a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — lands Israel captured in 1967.

Two Republican-led committees in the House — Foreign Affairs and the Appropriations subcommittee on the State Department and Foreign Operations — put a hold on $200 million in economic assistance in late August, as the Palestinians were gearing up for their U.N. move.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last month proceeded anyway, presenting his case for recognition in a speech to the U.N. and formally submitting a request to the Security Council.

The Obama Administration finds itself caught in the middle — opposing both the Palestinians' U.N. gambit and the Republican moves to punish them for it.

Keeping the aid flowing "is not only in the interest of the Palestinians, it's in the U.S. interest and it's also in the Israeli interest, and we would like to see it go forward," State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Monday.

Visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta argued on Monday that "this is no time to withhold those funds, at a point in time where we are urging the Palestinians and the Israelis to sit down and negotiate a peace agreement."...

So, bribe them?

Pamela Geller was on Hannity last Friday discussing the latest front of the Palestinian jihad against Israel: the United Nations. It is refreshing to see some common sense on the airwaves.

Get the urgently needed book, the only one that offers free citizens practical and proven strategies for resisting the advance of Sharia in the U.S.: Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.

It isn't even really intended to bring peace. My Human Events column this morning:

Millions around the world believe that when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted an application to the United Nations Friday for admission of Palestine as an independent state, he was setting the stage for a new era of peace in the Middle East. Unfortunately, nothing is more certain than that those hopes—like all the hopes raised by the accords and treaties and agreements and road maps that have come before—will met with disappointment.

Abbas, not surprisingly, blamed the failure of earlier negotiations on Israel. He complained that “the Israeli government ... frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the territory of the state of Palestine. Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial discrimination against our people that this policy entails.”

Are the Israeli settlements really the problem? No, they’re just the obstacle du jour. In fact, the Palestinian Arabs rejected the United Nations’ original proposal to create a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947, long before any “settlements” were on the horizon. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in his own UN address on Friday: “Our conflict has been raging for—was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. ... [Abbas] said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn’t say from 1967, he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict.”

The Arab states surrounding Israel opted not to accept a “two-state solution,” but instead to go to war with the new Jewish state in 1948, assuming that they would be able to destroy that state easily and obviate the need for a new Arab state alongside it.

They were wrong, of course. And subsequently Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan occupied the West Bank for the next 19 years, until 1967—yet during that time, there was no talk among the Palestinian Arabs about the humiliation of occupation and their need for a state. Only after the Six Day War, when Israel took over administration of those areas, did such talk begin. And so on Friday when Abbas retailed a long list of grievances, they were all merely the latest in a long line of pretexts justifying what is ultimately an implacable animus toward Israel, which will never be satisfied by anything other than the total destruction of the Jewish state.

Neither Abbas’ PLO nor its rival Hamas, which controls Gaza, has ever recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And Islamic theology does not allow for the legitimate existence of an infidel polity on what is considered Muslim land. Hence the goal remains, for all too many Palestinians, the utter destruction of Israel. The creation of a Palestinian state will simply be a stepping stone toward that goal....

There is more.

Make that 32 squandered opportunities for peace. "Palestinian leader rejects intl peace blueprint," by Amy Teibel and Mohammed Daraghmeh for the Associated Press, September 25:

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas strongly suggested Saturday that he would reject a peacemaking blueprint put forward by international mediators, saying he would not agree to any proposal that disregarded Palestinian conditions for the resumption of peace talks.

Abbas, who returned to the West Bank on Saturday after submitting a statehood bid at the United Nations a day earlier, told reporters accompanying him that he was still studying the proposal by the peacemaking Quartet — the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia.

But he appeared to tip his hand by saying "we will not deal with any initiative" that doesn't demand a halt to Israeli settlement construction or negotiations based on borders before the 1967 War when Israel captured land the Palestinians claim for their state.

The Quartet statement made no such demands.

Abbas dug into his positions after resisting heavy, U.S.-led pressure to abandon his bid to have the U.N. recognize a state of Palestine in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. His willingness to stand up to Washington has won him newfound respect at home, where he had been considered a lackluster leader. The unilateral bid for statehood and U.N. membership reflects deep-seated Palestinian exasperation over 44 years of Israeli occupation.

Israel has had no comment on the Quartet plan to resume long-stalled negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, which mediators regard as the only way to establish a Palestinian state. Israeli leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the long-standing conditions Abbas has put forth, saying talks must go forward without imposing terms.

Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel's heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank. And he says the fate of settlements should be left to negotiations.

The Quartet urged both parties to draw up an agenda for peace talks within a month and produce comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months. Mediators aspire to a final deal within a year, but similar plans have failed to produce a peace agreement in the past, and this latest proposal offered no program for bridging the huge differences that have stymied negotiations for most of the past three years.

The Quartet plan was meant to rechannel to negotiations any momentum the Palestinians would gain from their statehood application. A U.N. nod would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and east Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.

But Palestinians are hoping that any upgrade in their international status would give them more clout in any future talks with Israel.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon relayed the Palestinians' statehood request to the Security Council on Friday, shortly after Abbas formally submitted it. It is expected to be shot down there, either because it won't win the required support of nine of the Council's 15 members, or because the U.S. will make good on its threat to veto it. The Security Council will meet Monday to deal with the membership request, but final action is likely to take weeks or months....

Your tax dollars, given to the Palestinians as foreign aid, at work. "Palestinian Authority employees ordered to participate in anti-Israel protests," from the World Tribune, September 23 (thanks to Rosanne):

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian Authority was said to have mobilized thousands of civil servants for anti-Israeli demonstrations in the West Bank.

Opposition sources said the PA has ordered the more than 100,000 civil servants to participate in demonstrations for Palestinian statehood. They said PA and Fatah officials ensured that government employees attended anti-Israeli protests during work hours.

"PA employees have been told that if they don't attend these demonstrations, they will be fired," an opposition source said.

“Since 9/11, militant Islam has slaughtered countless innocents. The most dangerous threat is that these fanatics arm themselves with nuclear weapons and this is precisely what Iran is trying to do. Can you imagine that man [Ahmadinejad] armed with nuclear weapons?”

"Netanyahu: Palestinians want state without peace," from Ynet News, September 23 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Palestinians should recognize Israel as the Jewish state and make peace with it, before seeking a state of their own, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the UN General Assembly Friday.

“Israel has extended its hand in peace from the moment it was established,” offering Israel’s response to a fiery anti-Israel speech delivered by the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas earlier.

Netanyahu said that he extended his hand to the Arab nations of the Middle East “on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people,” and mostly to the Palestinian people, “with whom we seek a just and lasting peace.”

“I came here to speak the truth. The truth is that Israel wants peace. The truth is that I want peace. The truth is that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians, but they want a state without peace, and the truth is you shouldn’t let that happen,” he said. “The Palestinian should first make peace with Israel and then get their state. After peace is signed, Israel won’t be the last country to accept a Palestinian state – we will be the first.”

'Recognize Jewish state'

Declaring that Israel is a Jewish state, Netanyahu said: “We don’t want the Palestinian to change the Jewish character of the state. We want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians. “

The prime minister added that settlements were not the main obstacle to peace, saying: “The core of the conflict is not the settlement, the settlements is a result of the conflict. The core of the conflict is the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border.”

“Recognize the Jewish state and make peace with us,” he said, referring to Palestinian President Abbas.

Referring to the terrorism threat faced by Israel, the PM said: “Thousand of missiles have already rained down on our cities. So you might understand why Israelis rightfully ask what’s preventing it from happening again.”

“Would any of you bring danger so close to your cities, to your families? Would you act so recklessly with the life of your families?” he said.

“Since 9/11, militant Islam has slaughtered countless innocents. The most dangerous threat is that these fanatics arm themselves with nuclear weapons and this is precisely what Iran is trying to do. Can you imagine that man armed with nuclear weapons?” Netanyahu added, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Abbas delivers anti-Israel speech

Earlier, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas asked the United Nations on Friday to recognize a state for his people, accusing Israel of engaging in ethnic cleansing in his United Nations speech....

The head shake heard 'round the world occurs around 1:50. As Bill Clinton found out, there can be no breakthrough if one side is coming to the table in bad faith. Clinton himself told Yasser Arafat: "A summit’s purpose is to have discussions that are based on sincere intentions and you, the Palestinians, did not come to this summit with sincere intentions."

That was but one of 31 opportunities for statehood the Palestinian side has discarded, while Nabil Shaath now insists the UN spectacle is the "only alternative to violence."

As we have noted before, the Palestinian Authority does seem to have calculated a win-win situation by forcing the issue at the UN: either they get what they want, or they get an excuse for another intifada, with all of the gratuitous invocations of the "Arab Spring" that are bound to accompany it.

"'The only alternative is violence': Palestinian fury after Obama urges them to drop U.N. independence bid," by Mark Duell for the Daily Mail, September 21:

Barack Obama triggered fury among Palestinians tonight just hours after he pushed them to withdraw their United Nations independence bid.

Nabeel Shaath, a senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said after Mr Obama’s speech to the General Assembly in New York that going to the U.N. is the ‘only alternative to violence’.

During the President's speech, a Palestinian representative was caught on television shaking his head when Mr Obama said the Palestinians and Israelis must learn to 'see the world through the other's eyes'.

Hours after Mr Obama's address, a top Palestinian official said Mr Abbas had no plans to agree to a delayed vote on his bid for membership in the U.N. - rejecting mounting pressure from the U.S. and France.

The Palestinians plan to submit their application on Friday when Mr Abbas is to speak to the General Assembly, but he faced a withering lack of support as the world body opened its annual meeting.

Mr Obama said there could be no ‘shortcuts’ in the quest for Middle East peace – but Mr Abbas’s senior aide Saeb Erekat stated: ‘We will not allow any political manoeuvring on this issue’. [...]

The graphic show of displeasure by a Palestinian official at the speech will enrage White House aides who want to promote Mr Obama’s bid to play a central role in finding a Middle East breakthrough....

That, of course, is not what the PA emphasized in this case, portraying her as a victim because she has a total of seven sons in Israeli prisons.

For reasons the PA did not exactly intend, she indeed could not be a better symbolic choice to personify their bid for statehood, combining propaganda, deception, claiming victim status, and the evasion of accountability all in one package.

"Mother of 4 terrorist murderers chosen by the PA to launch statehood campaign," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, September 18:

The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of 4 terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to killed twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.

The official PA daily reported that she launched the UN campaign last week, and noted that she is the "mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun'im Abu Hmeid." However, the paper did not mention that 4 of her imprisoned sons are murderers.

Palestinian Media Watch reported last year that Abu Hmeid then had 4 sons in Israeli prisons who were each serving between two and seven life sentences, a total of 18 life sentences. At that time she was in the news because the PA Minister of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake, decided to honor her with an award, "the Plaque of Resoluteness and Giving... inscribed with the names of her four sons who are imprisoned."

Remember, these are supposed to be the "moderate" guys:

The PA minister explained then why the mother of 4 murderers of Israelis deserves such honor:

"It is she who gave birth to the fighters, and she deserves that we bow to her in salute and in honor."

The four sons are serving a total of 18 life sentences for the following crimes:

Nasser Abu Hmeid - 7 life sentences + 50 years - commander in Fatah's military wing the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Ramallah. Convicted of killing seven Israeli civilians and 12 attempted murders.

Nasr Abu Hmeid - 5 life sentences - Member of terror faction of Fatah, Tanzim, and convicted of involvement in two terror attacks and arms dealing.

Sharif Abu Hmeid - 4 life sentences - a member in one of the brothers' units carrying out terror attacks against civilians and soldiers. Accompanied a suicide bomber to his attack in March 2002.

Muhammad Abu Hmeid - 2 life sentences + 30 years - involvement in terror attacks.

A fifth son, Abd Al-Mun'im Muhammad Yusuf Naji Abu Hmeid, the one referred to as "Martyr," was a member of the military wing of Hamas, Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, and planned and carried out the ambush and murder of an Israeli intelligence officer.

PMW has not been able to determine for which crimes the rest of the sons are imprisoned.

The following are the reports about the mother of the terrorists launching the PA statehood campaign:

PA TV News interviews Abd Al-Mun'im Wahdan, a member of the "Palestine - the 194th state" national campaign:

Wahdan: "We of the 'Palestine - the 194th state' national campaign [calling for] a Palestinian state with full sovereignty on the territory of Palestine, send a delegation from institutions, organizations, and popular factions. This delegation was headed by Um Nasser Abu Hmeid - this fighter woman, who is the mother of seven prisoners and the mother of the heroic Shahid (Martyr) from the [military wing of Hamas] Izz A-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. This campaign included a letter in which the people demand that the UN recognize Palestine as a state with full sovereignty, like the other countries." [PA TV (Fatah), Sept. 8, 2011]

"The 'Palestine - the 194th State' campaign has embarked on its national activities in support of realization [of the appeal to the UN] in September and obtaining UN membership for the State of Palestine, by conveying a letter to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, via his representative in Ramallah. The campaign started out opposite the UN building in Ramallah, with the participation of a number of heads of factions and national forces, representatives of official and popular institutions, independent personalities, and members of trade unions. Hajja Latifa Abu Hmeid, mother of seven prisoners and of the Shahid (Martyr) Abd Al-Mun'im Abu Hmeid, handed the letter to the representative of the UN Secretary General in Ramallah." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 9, 2011]

"[In a procession which set off] yesterday from opposite the Cultural Auditorium in Ramallah in the direction of the UN representative office in Ramallah, the 'Palestine - the 194th State' national campaign was inaugurated... when Latifa Abu Hmeid, known as the 'mother of the prisoners', handed over a letter addressed to UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, via his representative in Ramallah... She was chosen [for this] because she is a symbol of Palestinian suffering as a result of the occupation's (i.e., Israel's) policy... She is the mother of prisoners Muhammad Abu Hmeid and his brothers Nasr, Nasser, Sharif, Basel, Islam and Jihad. She is prevented from seeing her sons who are sitting in the occupation's prisons." [Al-Ayyam, Sept. 9, 2011]

An update on this story. Predictably, even though Maen Rashid Areikat made these same comments last year, he is now said to have been misquoted, and as reported below, he wants USA Today to "reverse the story."

Perhaps the PA realized that ambassador's calls for "total separation" of Jews and Muslims at the outset of a Palestinian state could damage the future prospects for the train wreck known as the "right of return," an attempted demographic conquest in waiting.

Perhaps also, they realized the double standard the ambassador articulated was a little too frank for the present moment, seeing as Israeli Arabs live as regular citizens of the Jewish state. "Palestinian officials: Jews welcome," by Josh Gerstein and MJ Lee for Politico, September 16:

Palestinian officials are rolling out the welcome mat for Jews to come to a new Palestinian state.

Trying to tamp down a controversy over whether a Palestinian state would be Jew-free, Mahmoud Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, said a future state would be open to people of all religions, including Jews.

“The future Palestinian state will be open to all its citizens, regardless of their religion,” Habbash said, according to USA Today. “We want a civil state, which in it live all the faiths, Muslim, Christian and Jews also if they agree, (and) accept to be Palestinian citizens.”

Maen Areikat, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s ambassador to the United States, told POLITICO that his comments earlier this week which some interpreted as meaning Jews would not be welcome were misconstrued.

“In no way was there a suggestion that Jews cannot enter Palestine or be in Palestinian state in the future,” Areikat said.

The officials’ comments follow a controversy the ambassador’s remarks at a breakfast on Tuesday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor in which he said that Jews and Palestinians “need to be totally separated.”

USA Today reported that Areikat was calling for the future Palestinian state to “free of Jews.”

Areikat told POLITICO that was a “total fabrication” and he said the report was a “malicious” manipulation of what he had said.

“It was a set-up to try to say something on my behalf I didn’t even say I did not mention the word Jews in my answer. I did not allude to that at all,” Areikat said. “We have never said this is a religious conflict.”

He added that the report was “so inflammatory” that he is requesting a meeting with an editor at USA Today there to “reverse the story.”...

Nabil Shaath said: "The Palestinians are going to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition for the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders... and there is no turning back or other choice than than this one."

They see a win-win situation. They can either twist the arm of the UN to let them bypass the usual criteria for being a state (and acting like one), and get the UN to make a land grab for them in defining the borders, or they have the excuse they can use for the next intifada, which will proceed with gratuitous invocations of the "Arab Spring," of course.

They will almost certainly not get full statehood. The U.S. is still promising to veto any such measure at the Security Council. Thus, the end result will probably be a yet-undetermined mixture of both scenarios: some degree of upgrade at the UN, and some attempts to finish the job through blackmail via increased violence, or the threat of it.

An update on this story. "'We won't give up UN bid': Palestinians," from Agence France-Presse, September 4:

The Palestinians will not be deterred from seeking United Nations membership, a senior official said here Sunday, after reports Washington was trying to head off their bid.

"The Palestinians are going to the UN Security Council to ask for recognition for the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders... and there is no turning back or other choice than than this one," said leading Palestinian official Nabil Shaath.

"There is no alternative to this decision and no going back on it and if the United States vetoes it, we will continue to knock on the door of the UN Security Council seeking full Palestinian UN membership," he told AFP.

The comments from Shaath, a member of the Fatah party led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, came after The New York Times reported that Washington was trying to put together a new peace talks proposal that would convince the Palestinians to hold off seeking membership at the United Nations.

Washington has said it will veto any Palestinian bid, but has made it clear it would prefer that the issue does not reach a vote at the Security Council.

The Times, citing US officials and foreign diplomats, said Washington was labouring to find language that would be sufficient to lure the Palestinians away from their bid, bring Israel to the negotiating table and be acceptable to the other members of the peacemaking Quartet -- the EU, UN and Russia.

Europe has struggled to define a unified position on the Palestinian bid, and Shaath said Sunday that EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton would visit Ramallah this week for talks with Abbas on the issue.

Quartet envoy Tony Blair and US special Middle East envoy David Hale were also expected to hold talks in Ramallah this week, Shaath said.

The Palestinians have insisted that they will not scrap their bid for UN membership, even if a new peace proposal is floated, insisting the move does not exclude the possibility of new talks.

Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials have spent recent months meeting with diplomats and officials from around the world, seeking to garner their support for the statehood bid.

Abbas was expected to continue his tour with a trip to Portugal at the end of this week, Shaath said.

The Palestinians are also launching a major public relations and protest campaign, seeking to garner popular support for the UN bid through media messages and peaceful demonstrations.

The director general of the official Voice of Palestine radio Ahmed Aridi told AFP on Sunday that the station would soon begin broadcasting radio spots in six languages to promote the membership bid.

The messages, which will run in English, Arabic, Hebrew, French, Spanish and Russian, state: "You are being offered peace with the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders."

Maybe it's the passive voice, maybe it's the translation, but even that has a menacing ring to it.

The spots are part of the broader "Palestine 194" campaign, which is being officially launched later this week and is expected to include adverts and peaceful protests inside the West Bank and overseas.

Forcing the issue over the vote is a virtual win-win situation for the Palestinian Authority, as they either get what they want, or they get an excuse for another intifada, as this report notes the fear of a "wave of anger" in the Palestinian territories and across the Arab world. Indeed, this is blackmail.

The proposal of peace talks as an alternative could place great pressure on Israel, which will be held to the higher side of a double standard on expectations of its willingness to compromise. They may well be pressed just to give the Palestinians what it takes to get the job done, as if this were some golden opportunity, and not just the Palestinian Authority's attempt to make the world "an offer it can't refuse."

"U.S. Appeals to Palestinians to Stall U.N. Vote on Statehood," by Steven Lee Meyers and Mark Landler for the New York Times, September 3:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over a plan by Palestinians to seek recognition as a state at the United Nations, but it may already be too late, according to senior American officials and foreign diplomats.

The administration has circulated a proposal for renewed peace talks with the Israelis in the hopes of persuading the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to abandon the bid for recognition at the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly beginning Sept. 20.

The administration has made it clear to Mr. Abbas that it will veto any request presented to the United Nations Security Council to make a Palestinian state a new member outright.

But the United States does not have enough support to block a vote by the General Assembly to elevate the status of the Palestinians’ nonvoting observer “entity” to that of a nonvoting observer state. The change would pave the way for the Palestinians to join dozens of United Nations bodies and conventions, and it could strengthen their ability to pursue cases against Israel at the International Criminal Court.

Senior officials said the administration wanted to avoid not only a veto but also the more symbolic and potent General Assembly vote that would leave the United States and only a handful of other nations in the opposition. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic maneuverings, said they feared that in either case a wave of anger could sweep the Palestinian territories and the wider Arab world at a time when the region is already in tumult. President Obama would be put in the position of threatening to veto recognition of the aspirations of most Palestinians or risk alienating Israel and its political supporters in the United States.

“If you put the alternative out there, then you’ve suddenly just changed the circumstances and changed the dynamic,” a senior administration official involved in the flurry of diplomacy said Thursday. “And that’s what we’re trying very much to do.”

Efforts to head off the Palestinian diplomatic drive have percolated all summer but have taken on urgency as the vote looms in the coming weeks. “It’s not clear to me how it can be avoided at the moment,” said Ghaith al-Omari, a former Palestinian negotiator who is now executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine in Washington. “An American veto could inflame emotions and bring anti-American sentiment to the forefront across the region.”

While some officials remain optimistic that a compromise can be found, the administration has simultaneously begun planning to limit the fallout of a statehood vote. A primary focus is to ensure the Israelis and Palestinians continue to cooperate on security matters in the West Bank and along Israel’s borders, administration officials said.

“We’re still focused on Plan A,” another senior administration official said, referring to the diplomatic efforts by the administration’s new special envoy, David M. Hale, and the president’s Middle East adviser on the National Security Council, Dennis B. Ross. Mr. Hale replaced the more prominent George J. Mitchell Jr., who resigned in May after two years of frustrated efforts to make progress on a peace deal.

The State Department late last month issued a formal diplomatic message to more than 70 countries urging them to oppose any unilateral moves by the Palestinians at the United Nations. The message, delivered by American ambassadors to their diplomatic counterparts in those countries, argued that a vote would destabilize the region and undermine peace efforts, though those are, at least for now, moribund....

More sterling behavior from the entity that wants to be handed a state in September without acting like one. This new form of blood libel has become popular in the past few years, bolstered by a bogus story in a major Swedish paper in 2009, and surfaces every now and then in one form or another.

Never mind the substantive accusations against jihadists in Kosovo of doing exactly what Issa Qaraqi is accusing Israel of doing. These allegations will be given far more credence.

They will also be used as a pretext for additional violence and threats against Israel, as Qaraqi surely knows. "PA minister claims Israel harvests Palestinian organs," by Herb Keinon for the Jerusalem Post, August 30:

The Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqi’ was quoted Sunday as saying Israel is the “major harvesting and trading center” of body organs in the world. His comments come even as the Defense Ministry is recommending to the government the release of a few hundred Palestinian prisoners to PA President Mahmoud Abbas in September to try and create a better atmosphere in the West Bank.

The prisoner release is part of a number of steps being discussed, including the return of the bodies of terrorists buried in Israel, whose goal is to improve the overall attitude on the Palestinian streets in advance of September.

The prisoners to be released would be Fatah members, none of whom is on the list being discussed for a possible deal with Hamas for the release of Gilad Schalit.

By contrast, the Saudi-based Arab News.com reported Sunday that Qaraqi’, “during the national day of Palestinian campaign to retrieve martyrs’ bodies,” accused Israel of harvesting parts from “the bodies of dead Palestinian martyrs without the consent of their families.” According to the website, Qaraqi’ said Israel was holding on to the remains of “Palestinian martyrs to conceal the crimes it committed against the martyrs’ bodies and to punish their families.”

Claiming that Israel was “holding the remains of 338 Arab and Palestinian fighters” in secret cemeteries, he said the “holding of the martyrs’ remains for many years casts doubts and accusations that Israel assassinated them after detention, or harvested their organs.”

The PA minister’s comments were swiftly denounced by Israel, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor saying that by “promoting heinous lies and blood libels, the Palestinians may score a few cheap points among the ignorant and the racists, but they will not be gaining any dignity and respect.

Well said.

Dealing in hate mongering will not lead anyone to respect them,” Palmor said, adding that “they that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.”

Recognition of the State of Israel has always been one of the stated conditions of the United States for any accord with Israel. Israel has been pressed again and again to make concessions, and has made them, in exchange for empty promises and the hope of this recognition. Even Obama, when he called for the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state, called on the Palestinians to recognize Israel. However, given the history here, it is likely that a Palestinian state will be declared and recognized by the world even as they continue to deny Israel's right to exist.

"Abbas: We won't recognize Israel as Jewish state," by Elior Levy for Ynet News, August 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

The Palestinian Authority will not be recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, adopting a belligerent tone ahead of his planned statehood bid in September.

The Palestinian leader also criticized demands made by the International Quartet of his Authority, urging the international community to back off.

The Palestinian leader also criticized demands made by the International Quartet of his Authority, urging the international community to back off. "Don't order us to recognize a Jewish state," Abbas said. "We won't accept it."

If they want to go off the rails, it will cost them, as it certainly should. More on this story. "US: Aid to Egypt conditional on peace with Israel," by Herb Keinon for the Jerusalem Post, August 23:

Washington’s $2 billion in annual aid to Egypt will be cut off if Cairo backs out of the peace treaty with Israel, Congresswoman Kay Granger – whose job as chairwoman of the US House appropriations foreign operations subcommittee means she literally writes America’s annual foreign aid bill – told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

“The United States aid to Egypt is predicated on the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and so the relationship between Egypt and Israel is extremely important,” the eight-term Republican from Texas said in an interview.

“As an appropriator I have two concerns: One thing is the continuing relationship between Egypt and Israel, and the other thing of course is what government we will be dealing with in Egypt, and what position the Muslim Brotherhood will play in this government.”

Granger, here among a delegation of 25 Republican congressmen sponsored by the American Israel Educational Foundation, a charitable organization affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said she is on record as saying that “if the treaty between Egypt and Israel is not continued, our financial support will not continue.”

She said she was not aware of any US threat to cut aid to Egypt during discussions this week on defusing the Israeli-Egyptian crisis following Thursday’s terrorist attack and the ensuing killing of three Egyptian security officials. A senior Israeli official said that not only was there no threat of a cutoff of aid, but that there was no need for such a threat, and Israel never asked for one.

While Egypt and Israel were in direct contact in defusing the crisis, the US was also heavily involved in the discussions as well.

Regarding how the Muslim Brotherhood’s participation in a future Egyptian government would impact the level of aid, Granger said this would depend “on how much of a position they have.”

Everyone, she said, assumed the Muslim Brotherhood would have some role and some participation in the next Egyptian government, but what will impact the level of US assistance will be the level of its governmental control.

She said all of this has been made clear to the Egyptians, and that at a meeting in March with transition head Field Marshal Muhammad Hussein Tantawi, the first thing she asked was whether the treaty with Israel would be honored.

“The answer was yes,” she said. [...]

Since the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, the US has provided Cairo with $2b. of aid annually, $1.3b. in military assistance and the rest in economic assistance.

Granger, who along with the delegation is scheduled to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, said it has been made clear that if the PA goes through with its statehood recognition bid at the UN in September, the roughly $500m. of US aid to the PA would be suspended. She said this would include money for Palestinian security training....

How about a word along those lines to Gaza?

Of course not. All of the Palestinian factions know that if Israel cannot hold Hamas accountable as the entity that is, after all, putatively in control of Gaza, there will exist a perfect arrangement of plausible deniability among jihadist groups: everyone benefits, and no one can face consequences if no one can be held responsible.

Pass the buck, and watch the rockets fly. "Barrage of rockets from Gaza strike Israel; sites in Gaza targeted," from CNN, August 21:

Jerusalem (CNN) -- A barrage of rockets and mortars fired into southern Israel continued Sunday, the latest in a four-day escalation of violence sparked by a series of attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers Thursday.

By noon Sunday, 20 incoming rockets had been reported by Israeli officials.

An eighth victim died from Thursday's attacks, Israeli police said Sunday. He was identified as Yitzhak Sela, a 56-year-old bus driver.

The attacks on buses, cars and security personnel killed six other Israeli civilians and one soldier and wounded more than 30 people, authorities said.

Since then, nearly 100 rockets have been fired into Israel, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav (Poly) Mordechai said Sunday. At least one Israeli was killed in an attack in Beer Sheva, authorities said. [...]

The office of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in a statement Sunday, said Israel's "rogue behavior must end."

The Palestinian government "calls upon the Israeli government to cease and desist in its use of its unjustified aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and to respect international law and refrain from revenge, terror, and collective punishment tactics," the statement said.....

Once again: how about a word along those lines to Gaza?

Hope doesn't make a governable state. Here again, as with all the blood and treasure squandered on "hearts and minds" in Iraq and Afghanistan (often translating into millions of dollars lost in the wrong hands) we see foreign policy based on wishful thinking and a fixation on other people's "feelings." We have already witnessed the disaster of policy-making that is based at heart on such speculation and the self-congratulating, hubris-laden expectation that the way things "ought" to work out is the way they will work out because the action taken was rooted in good intentions.

The global war on "underlying causes" that we find ourselves in turns a blind eye to the reality that countries and territories are not emotional entities that would straighten up and fly right if they just felt better. It is indeed condescending not to take into account that a given territory's governing entity is as rational, shrewd and calculating as the next one, and has its own agenda to advance.

The PA wants the UN to do its dirty work for it, to be handed a state in an exception to the usual expectations of international law. Speaking of "hope," the PA likely hopes the need to define the new state's borders will set up a UN-mandated land grab on behalf of "Palestine," granting a do-over and reversal of so many lost wars with Israel.

And what the UN gives "Palestine," the PA expects the UN will feel obligated not to allow to fail, even though the entity that would result would be unable to govern itself, and utterly dependent on outside help for material sustenance, and to keep the peace between Palestinian rivals.

"Spain says it supports the Palestinian bid for statehood," from Reuters, August 21:

MADRID - Spain hopes a meeting of European Union foreign ministers on Sept. 2 will bring progress towards the recognition of a Palestinian state, Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs Trinidad Jimenez said on Sunday.

"There's the feeling that now is the time to do something, to give the Palestinians the hope that a state could become reality," she said in an interview with El Pais newspaper published on Sunday.

"We have to give them some signal, because if we don't it could generate great frustration for the Palestinian people."

The meeting of EU foreign ministers in Sopot, Poland comes ahead of a United Nations General Assembly meeting later in September where Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is seeking to upgrade the Palestinians' status, but is unlikely to emerge with full UN membership for his country.

More likely is an upgrade of the Palestinian territories to become a non-member state from its current status as an observer. That would not need Security Council approval and would elevate the Palestinians' UN status to equal that of the Vatican.

The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Shaul Mofaz (Kadima) postponed on Saturday the presentation of findings on the possible repercussions of a Palestinian declaration of statehood at the UN in September.

Mofaz has criticized the government numerous times in recent months, accusing it of being unprepared for the consequences of the expected UN vote.

“If the diplomatic process for September had been significant, most of the army’s preparations would not have been necessary,” he said after IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz briefed the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last month.

The "Palestine" to be voted on at the U.N. does not meet the criteria for statehood under international law. Abbas wants the U.N. to rip the proverbial training wheels off of the Palestinian entity when it has never even been able to function like a state with them. If its past few years of governing Palestinian territories have been a trial run, the Palestinian Authority has failed miserably.

Even the Obama administration appears to recognize a disaster waiting to happen. "Report: US threatened to halt aid if PA goes to UN," by Eilor Levy for the Associated Press, August 21:

Associated of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad say that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened in a phone conversation to halt the American aid to the Palestinians if they ask the United Nations to recognize an independent Palestinian state in September.

The sources noted that Clinton told Fayyad that this would happen if the Palestinians fail to give the American administration a chance to resume peace negotiations with Israel. The sources added that Fayyad relayed the message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

For any peace negotiations, there is also the matter of the PA's reconciliation with Hamas. The PA cannot simultaneously be for peace with Israel and cooperating with a group that is actively and openly out to destroy the Jewish state.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Little Red Riding Hood and The Martyr's Wedding in PA kindergarten," by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik for Palestinian Media Watch, August 15:

A Palestinian kindergarten ceremony included a play performed by children named The Martyr's Wedding alongside a play from the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Palestinian Media Watch has documented the frequent use by Palestinians of the term "wedding" to refer to the death and funeral of "Martyrs," in keeping with the Islamic tradition that the Martyr for Allah marries 72 Dark-Eyed Virgins of Paradise:

"'The Birds of Paradise' kindergarten held a nice graduation party... The ceremony included beautiful performances... one of the most outstanding was a play from the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and another performance named 'The Martyr's Wedding', delighted the audience by the role-play of the children, whose acting depicted the reality of roadblocks, children, occupation soldiers, and the children's death as Martyrs. This charm caused the audience to cry, as the children's performance was accompanied by the playing of nationalistic songs."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 2, 2011]

Promoting the Islamic value of Shahada - Martyrdom for Allah - for children was very common during the PA terror campaign (the Intifada). From 2000 - 2005, PA TV broadcast numerous video clips describing Martyrdom death as sweet, and encouraging children to aspire to die as Martyrs. The Palestinian Authority received significant international criticism for this and most of the Shahada promotion for children was removed from TV. Occasionally, PA TV still broadcasts children singing songs about the importance of Martyrdom even for children.

Recently, PA TV broadcast a girl dedicating a song to her terrorist uncle about aspiring to Shahada:

"When we become Martyrs,
we'll go to Paradise.
Don't say we're young.
This way of life has made us adults.
...
Without Palestine,
what meaning is there to childhood?
Children, you performed the (religious) duty and Sunna (Islamic tradition):
There is no God but Allah,
and the Shahid (Martyr) is Allah's beloved.
You have taught us the meaning of heroism.
...
Even if they were to give us this world and all of its treasures,
no, it would not make us forget [Palestine]. Not at all.
It is my country and [I give] my blood for its sake."
[PA TV (Fatah), April 13, 2011]

Read it all.

High-salaried Palestinian Authority officials are the smugglers' clientele. So in other words, they are paying for these cars with your UN relief money.

"Smuggling in North Sinai Surges as the Police Vanish," by David D. Kirkpatrick in the New York Times, August 14 (thanks to Bill):

RAFAH, Egypt — The smuggler’s car lot is so brazenly out in the open, it is hard to tell that the business is actually illegal.

A Bedouin car smuggler in Rafah, Egypt, can expect to make at least $2,000 per vehicle, after paying suppliers and bribes.

Cars are driven from the chaos in Libya to this small patch of sand amid the fig trees in the North Sinai desert, where Palestinians can pick out their model and haggle over the price. Then they wait in Gaza for delivery through tunnels snaking beneath the border.

The police have all but disappeared from the northern Sinai since the Egyptian revolution, and the smuggling business has grown so exponentially that Hamas, the militant group controlling Gaza, recently decided to limit the car imports to 30 a week for fear of pollution and traffic congestion in the narrow Mediterranean enclave, smugglers say.

“There are no police around to check,” one smuggler said as a white Hyundai Tucson with Libyan plates pulled into the lot.

As law enforcement returns elsewhere in Egypt six months after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, there is still almost no sign of the police in Bedouin-dominated North Sinai, the region along the border with Israel that has long been a center of criminal activity. Mr. Mubarak treated it as virtual enemy territory and flooded it with police officers as he sought to help enforce an Israeli blockade of Gaza.

And now the withdrawal of his security forces has unleashed not only a smuggling bonanza but also a more violent backlash against his Israel policy. Six unexplained bombing attacks (the first one failed to go off) have repeatedly shut down a pipeline that delivers natural gas to Israel under a Mubarak-era contract that is wildly unpopular because of its association with both Israel and corruption. The interruption of the gas supply has done as much as any formal policy change to strain relations between the two allies. No one has been arrested in any of the attacks.

The Egyptian military announced over the weekend that it was deploying more troops to the border region to help with security, but Bedouin around Rafah said Monday that they had noticed no change. [...]

Smugglers said they earned a generous profit on cars purchased in Libya. One said he might buy a Libyan car for the equivalent of $22,000 and sell it in Gaza for about $30,000. Another said he bought a black BMW x6 sports car for $80,000 and planned to sell it for $100,000, after a few desert joy rides for himself. Smugglers say they pay about $6,000 to Hamas and the tunnel owner and, after various other bribes, typically pocket $2,000 to $2,500 in profit per car.

Though unemployment is high in Gaza, there are plenty of salaried Palestinian government officials, small-business people and those active in the black market who can afford to buy a car.

On the streets of North Sinai’s regional capital, El Arish, a smuggler pointed out the illicit cars. The irregular bolts on the license plates gave away a stolen black Toyota Hilux pickup, and a white Hyundai without any plates was a model sold in Libya but unavailable in Egypt. The smuggler spoke on condition of anonymity because, after all, his work was illegal, though he and others said that since the revolution the authorities seemed to worry only about political activities, not criminal acts.

“We have had no problems at all since the revolution — not even close calls,” a smuggler said as he puffed on a water pipe with a group of confederates around a table along the beach at a local hotel....