At his first interview with the Israeli media in early January the new American ambassador was asked If he would be visiting any of the settlements. No, he said, “I absolutely will not.” This went over well in the Muqata in Ramallah, but left most Israelis feeling a blend of amazement, chagrin, and fury.
There was more to come. “New US envoy says ‘absolutely won’t’ visit settlements, to avoid inflaming tensions,” by Jacob Magid, Times of Israel, January 14, 2022:
Pointing to another difference between the current and previous American administrations, the US ambassador said, “The Biden administration believes it must take care of the Palestinian people. That is the difference between us and the Trump administration.”
“The Biden administration believes it must take care of the Palestinian people”? Since when did that become an American duty? We have no historic connection to, no special affection for, no duty towards, the soi-disant “Palestinian people,” who, thanks to UNRWA’s ever-increasing largesse, are better provided for than any of the hundreds of millions of real refugees created since World War II.
Some of us – the better-informed some of us — don’t accept the existence of a separate “Palestinian people” whom Ambassador Nides thinks we must “take care of.” We know that their invention was a propaganda effort, suggested to Arafat by the KGB. The head of the Palestinian terror group As-Saiqa, Zuheir Mohsen, explained in an interview he gave to the Dutch newspaper Trouw in 1977: “Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation […] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons.”
Mohsen repeated – and reinforced — the point: “The Palestinian people do not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons.”
Nides may think “we have to take care of the Palestinian people,” but many will reject – as you and I do – both parts of that bizarre proposition.
Nides pointed to Biden’s renewal of hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians that was cut by Trump, amid Ramallah’s refusal to engage with his administration.
Asked if he’s had any meetings with Palestinian officials since his arrival, the envoy admitted that he had yet to cross the Green Line, but said he well might do so in the coming weeks if asked.
While the Palestinian Authority has renewed its ties with the Biden administration, it has maintained an overall boycott of the US embassy, objecting to its relocation from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The boycott hasn’t always been maintained though, and PA President Mahmoud Abbas has met with the head of the embassy’s Palestinian Affairs Unit George Noll — which operates in lieu of the Jerusalem Consulate that Trump shuttered in 2019.
Nides repeated the Biden administration’s assertion that the US plans to reopen the consulate that historically served as the de facto mission to the Palestinians. However, he did not provide any additional details, including a timeline for when the matter will be seen through.
Biden is a year into his term as President, and while he promised to reopen the consulate to the Palestinians very early on, it looks as if it’s not going to happen. Biden has a lot on his plate: a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Chinese threat to Taiwan, the North Korean missiles, the endless wrangling with Iran in Vienna. The Palestinians are small beer. The Abraham Accords show how little they matter to the other Arabs. He’s already thinking of the 2024 election, his sinking numbers in the polls, and likely Democratic losses in 2022. Why unnecessarily antagonize Israel’s supporters by trying – in vain — to reopen that consulate to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem?
Besides, Biden would need to obtain the approval of Israel to open that consulate, and he knows that under the Vienna Convention of 1963, to which both Israel and the US are signatories, a consulate cannot be opened without the agreement of the host state. A unilateral reopening of the consulate would contradict the convention, custom, and common sense. Both Prime Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Lapid have insisted that Israel will never give such approval. Biden is stuck.
And the Bidenites have gotten the message.
Three sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel last month that Washington has effectively decided to shelve plans to reopen the consulate amid strong Israeli resistance to the move. The news has deeply angered PA leaders, who warned ToI [Times of Israel] that the move would have consequences on US-Palestinian relations moving forward.
Oh dear. America, you have been warned. There will be “consequences on [sic] US-Palestinian relations” if that consulate is not reopened. What might they be? Will the Palestinians refuse to cash those generous checks the Bidenites have been sending to Ramallah? No one in the U.S. will be losing sleep over that.
Nides asserted that despite declarative efforts to reopen the consulate, “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the American ambassador works and lives there.”
Beyond that, he said that the US hopes the final status of Jerusalem will be determined through direct negotiations between the parties.
I hate to break it to Ambassador Nides, but the “final status” of Jerusalem was decided some 3000 years ago, when it became the center of Jewish life, the place where Jews lived uninterruptedly for thousands of years. There have been updates to the story since, as the city changed rulers, but not its central significance to Jews. The last major change was in 1980, when the modern state of Israel formally annexed all of Jerusalem. Its “status” is not subject to “negotiations between the parties.” Sorry, Mr. Ambassador. No can do.
As for the Biden administration’s support for Israel more broadly, Nides characterized it as “unconditional.”…
“Unconditional”? Not if the Bidenites are willing to violate the Taylor Force Act and provide hundreds of millions of dollars to the P.A. despite its continuing to reward past, and incentivize future, terrorist acts through the “Pay-For-Slay” program that is Mahmoud Abbas’ proudest achievement. Not if it is willing to let the PLO, which has Israeli blood on its hands, reopen an office in Washington.
“Unconditional”? Not If the Biden Administration refuses to admit that Israel has a very strong claim to retain all of Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank), based on Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine, which encourages “close settlement by Jews on the land.” What land? All the land that the League of Nations assigned to the Palestine Mandate for the Jewish National Home. That land extended from the Golan in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. Have the Bidenites read, and understood what the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine signifies? Are they aware that Article 80 of the U.N. Charter committed the U.N. to fulfill the requirements of any League of Nations mandates still remaining? Does Biden, does Blinken, does Sullivan understand that Resolution 242 of the U.N. Security Council allowed Israel to retain the territory it deems necessary in order to have “secure [i.e. defensible] and recognized boundaries”? I have an awful feeling that Ambassador Nides has paid no attention to, inter alia, the Mandate for Palestine, the Treaty of San Remo, Article 80 of the U.N Charter, and Resolution 242 of the Security Council. It’s time, Ambassador Nides, for you to hit the books, and burn the midnight oil.
“Some of the conversations are meant to calm your anxiety. If I were Israeli, I would be anxious too. I respect that with all my heart,” Nides said.
They’d be a little less anxious in Israel, Mr. Ambassador, If you’d do the right and handsome thing, and announce that “upon reconsideration, I intend to visit the five settlement blocs that Israelis keep telling me, will remain part of Israel, whatever else may be subject to negotiation. Yes, I’d like to see some things in the West Bank for myself. And I will.”
Impotent rage from the rais in Ramallah, feeling betrayed. Quiet satisfaction in Jerusalem. A highly desirable denouement.
Charlie in NY says
If the Biden Administration’s position is that it “must take care of the Palestinian people”, putting aside the condescending paternalism of the statement, what then must be the Administration’s position regarding, say, the Uighurs who the US has declared are the victims of a genocide?
Whatever the Administration believes it owes the Palestinians, surely it owes far more to the Uighurs. In fact, by helping the Uighurs the US helps itself by weakening an adversary while by helping the Palestinians the US hurts itself by creating more instability in an already unstable region while weakening its only reliable ally there.
angelo barbato says
You forget that this administration lack intelligence, let alone any shred of decency and common sense!
Walter Sieruk says
This newly appointed ambassador by his own choice of words is exposing what an ignorant man he really is by using the term “the Palestinian people.”
For the reality is that there is no ethnic people or race that is “Palestinian.”
That modern myth that there is a started in 1967 after the Arabs who are also Muslims lost the war that year with Israel. So fiction of that there is a ” distinct “Palestinian people” made to give Westerners the impression that the Muslim /Arabs living in that area of the Middle East have some kind of “genuine” claim on that land that is now the State of Israel.
In addition ,before 1948 and for a number of years after the word “Palestinian ” was used in a non- specific way to apply to anyone who lived that area in the Middle East ,which is now Israel, be he or she an Arab or a Jew.
So the ignorant choice of terms used by this new ambassador picked by the Biden administration , is a reflection of anti-Israel ignorance of Joe Biden and his crew.
mortimer says
Ambassador Nides has blundered. He is now hopelessly inappropriate in the position and he should be recalled immediately to Washington and replaced as soon as possible. The US doesn’t have a responsibility to create a Palestinian state. The Arab identity is recognized in Israeli law and Arabic is an official language of Israel. No more recognition than that would be reasonable in a unitary state. You cannot have two states warring in the bosom of a single country, especially when the Pallies state clearly their intention of annihilating the State of Israel.
Mr. Nides is through as ambassador.
somehistory says
His responsibility….if he really was president…would be to take care of the American people.
His responsibility as fake president, is to tell the Truth and step aside, vacate the premises, apologize to those whom he has cheated for a year, and then pay back all money he spent that came from taxpayers ;and that includes, money spent flying home numerous times and flights abroad, the food and drink served, laundry, security detail, the fence around his private home, rides in limos, etc…and his salary that he has not earned due to not being a real president.
Israel should not expect anything except lies and more lies and going against their interests.
mortimer says
The Bribed-man administration specializes in lies and they have been caught many times in lies so far. This is one more lie. They are career liars. A senator recently offered the Dem leaders free flip-flop sandals to mock their opportunistic, inconsistent behavior.
Wellington says
To begin with, the “Palestinian people” are a fiction. Treat them as a reality and it’s all downhill from there.
Again the Biden Administration effs up. Clowns aplenty are running the Biden Administration and old Joe himself is just a figurehead—and a mean, creepy, no redeeming quality figurehead at that.
mortimer says
Agree with Wellington again … ‘no redeeming quality’. I hadn’t realized this harsh truth about the Bribed-man. He truly has no redeeming quality, because he is 100% fake all the time, except when gulping down large amounts of ice-cream.
Eva says
Or sniffing children.
mortimer says
‘Palestinian’ as a national name is a neologism. Jews from the 1850s on began to refer to themselves as Palestinians or Judaeans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22
On the Arab side, there was no such identification besides ‘Syrian’ or Lebanese. Khalil Beidas, a Lebanese writer, novelist and prolific translator wrote in his preface to his translation of Akim Olesnitsky’s ‘A Description of the Holy Land’:
“…the people of Palestine were in need of a geography book about their country… the Palestinian peasant waits impatiently for winter to come, for the season’s rain to moisten his fossilized fields”.
It has been proposed that this represents the first instance in modern history where the term ‘Palestinian’ or ‘Filastini’ appears in Arabic. Beidas, though born of Lebanese parents, promoted the idea of a separate Palestinian nationality.
Beidas was one of the many imports to what became Palestine who invented and fabricated a new identity for Arabs which had hitherto never existed.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_name_%22Palestine%22#Rashidun,_Umayyad_and_Abbasid_Caliphates_period)
CogitoErgoSum says
We at least should get them to pay some sort of Jizya to us for protecting them.
James Lincoln says
It should now be crystal clear to Israel that they currently (under the fraudulent Biden administration) do not have the support of the United States.
All security issues should be conducted under this premise.
Wellington says
Seconded.
gravenimage says
US ambassador to Israel: ‘The Biden administration believes it must take care of the Palestinian people’
………………
The only purpose of the “Palestinian people” is to destroy Israel. Meanwhile, Biden and his ambassador to Israel seem to have no such desire to take care of our close allies the Israelis. *Ugh*.
Jim says
You would think that any US WH would insist that the Palestinians stop firing rockets at Israel and stop building terror tunnels and stop using anti-Semitic textbooks and stop paying bounties for terror attacks on Israel as a condition for helping the Palestinians. The leaders of the Palestinians could divert the money they spend on these projects to support the Palestinian people with businesses, hospitals, schools and libraries, etc.
gravenimage says
+1
OLD GUY says
Well lets face it, there are way more muslims than people in Israel for our corporations to sell stuff too. The islamic countries also have the oil that our government under Biden wants to purchase from them at a good price. I’d also say that the muslims represent a large labor force, but they don’t seem to like working, but expect non-muslims to support them. So my guess it’s I-phone sales, arms, and construction contracts to build palaces in muslim countries off our foreign aid contributions.
Oren says
Not the palestinians in Lebanon, syria, jordan, or egypt who are denied equal rights before the law, forbidden from working in certain fields, forced to live in ghettos, with grand children and great grand children never being freed from this condemnation of palestinians. The muslims are willing to do anything to contradict the Jews. Sounds like people with tremendous hostile emotions towards Jews, which we usually call racism.
Now we can also see that the americans are willing to tell any lies they need to, in order to oppose secure Israeli borders, Jewish legal rights, land rights, religious rights and more. Jewish free speech is the greatest enemy of the left of all. America is the enemy of the Jewish people. Not all, but the overwhelming majority of the establishment, and A clear majority of the people, when you ask serious questions. In G-d I trust.
gravenimage says
Good points, Oren.
Proud Islamophobe says
Good: Let OBiden and the Bidenites look after the “palestinians.” Although it’s no one’s responsibility to look after these helpless terror babies, it sure as heck isn’t Israel’s responsibility. 342,000,000 people can look after them a lot easier than 8,000,000 of them can, especially when the 8,000,000 spend eight times more on self-defense than any other country in the world. Only anti-Semites or libturds would say no to taking this burden off of Israel.