Bus Stop Car Ramming Attacks in Israel
"A mighty war against terror is taking place on all fronts. We are now pursuing and encircling the villages
where the terrorists came from."
"[Security forces have thwarted hundreds of attacks this year], But unfortunately, not this morning."
"The fighting continues in the Gaza Strip. [Israel] will destroy Hamas as we promised and free our hostages —
all of our hostages."
"Sadly, the war also continues in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, [West Bank] where we have acted with great force."
"[Such terror attacks will not deter Israel.] They only increase our
determination to complete our missions, in Judea and Samaria too —
everywhere."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
 |
| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the scene of a terror attack at Ramot
Junction, entrance to Jerusalem, September 8, 2025. (Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90) |
"I was on the bus. The bus was packed. The
moment [the driver] opened the door… terrorists came. It was terrible."
"I
was by the back door, I fell on everyone and escaped, I saved myself."
"There was gunfire there beyond anything imaginable. I can’t believe I’m standing here. Indescribable gunfire."
Malka Cohen, passenger, bus 62
"[This was a] heroic operation."
"We affirm that this operation is a natural response to the
occupation’s crimes and war of extermination it is waging against our
people."
"[West
Bank Palestinians should continue to] escalate the confrontation with the occupation and
its settlers."
Hamas statement
 |
| Police and rescue personnel at the scene of a terror attack at Ramot
Junction near the entrance to Jerusalem, September 8, 2025 (Chaim
Goldberg/FLASH90) |
Yet
another of the countless attacks perpetrated by Palestinians against
Israelis. Bus stops are a favourite target, as are many other
people-gathering areas to ensure that carnage is as widespread as
possible. A terrorist armed with a submachine gun as these two attackers
were, even a pistol, is capable of murdering many people in such
gathering places, and wounding even greater numbers. People who just
happened to be waiting for transportation at such hubs, or dining at
popular restaurants, or sauntering along the street on a day of
relaxation, or attending public meetings, their numbers arresting the
attention of those who respond to the incitement of the Palestinian
Authority and the celebrity status they gain after such attacks.
The infamous "Pay for Slay"
is another incentive in the guise of monetary awards, a reward for
courage in the face of an unarmed, oblivious-to-danger 'enemy' in a
Palestinian culture inculcated from grade school by videos, plays,
photographs, lectures and plays demonstrating the noble obligation of
Palestinian youths to aspire to become martyrs and in the process gift
the heavens above with the death of despised Jews. On this occasion, two
young men from villages in the West Bank acted in concert to spray
innocent Israeli civilians with gunfire in a determination to become the
heroes of another atrocity.
This
fatal terror attack in Jerusalem Monday morning took six lives and
wounded over a dozen other people. As it happened, an armed soldier in
the crowded terminal who just happened to be there, along with two
citizens who were also armed -- a not uncommon measure of
self-protection in Israel -- neutralized the two who had been driven to
the area by a third man, to carry out their planned attack, at a time
when the state of Israel and its military are deeply embroiled in
self-defence against Palestinian and jihad-happy terrorists throughout
the region.
 |
| The victims of a deadly terror shooting in Jerusalem, on September 8,
2025; Top L-R: Levi Yitzhak Pash, Yisrael Matzner, 28; Rabbi Yosef
David, 43; Bottom L-R: Rabbi Mordechai Steintzag, 79; Yaakov Pinto, 25;
Sarah Mendelson, 60 (Courtesy) |
This
event was the deadliest such attack since 2024 in East Jerusalem. In a
country that is always on guard and which will never be entirely free of
such 'spontaneous' expressions of unreasoning hatred from an enemy
taught since birth to view all Jews as fair game in a never-ending
territorial war that demands all and overlooks nothing. Paramedics
responding to an all-too-familiar scene spoke of the wounded lying
unconscious on the sidewalk and road close to the bus stop.
According
to the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, the two attackers
were 20- and 22-year-old Palestinians from the West Bank, neither of
whom had a record of prior arrest. Prime Minister Netanyahu at the
scene, warned that Israel would respond to such attacks with wide
military raids, in reference to operations to target refugee camps in
the West Bank.
"The
fact that we eliminated these two terrorists is not enough, the fact
that we go after the supporters and aides, that is not enough either."
"We have already eliminated nests of terror in refugee camps, in three."
"We
simply evacuated the population from there and flattened all the terror
infrastructure -- and my instruction is to do the same in other nests
of terror."
 |
| Paramedics respond to a shooting attack at the Ramot Junction near the entrance to
Jerusalem, which wounded at least 15 people and killed 6, on September
8, 2025. (Magen David Adom) |
A
previous similar attack in the Ramot Junction area took place in 2023
when an Israeli citizen, Hussein Qaraqa, a resident of Issawiya, a
neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, rammed his car into a group of people
at a bus stop near Ramot Junction. In that attack, 6-year-old Yaakov
Yisrael Paley and 20-year-old Alter Shlomo Lederman died at the scene,
while Asher Menahem Paley 8, Yaakov's older brother, critically injured
in the attack, died of his wounds in hospital the following day.
Labels: Bus Stop, Jerusalem, Six Dead, Terrorist Attack, Twelve Wounded, Two Gunmen Eliminated
Next Year In Jerusalem
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget
[her cunning]. 6. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to
the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
Psalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down,
and there we wept when we remembered Zion.
[2] On the willows there we hung up our harps.
[3] For there our captors asked us for words of song,
and our tormentors, for mirth:
"Sing to us from the songs of Zion!"
[4] How could we sing the song of the LORD on an alien land?
[5] If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill,
[6] May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy.
"Despite the threats, and I will tell you, because of the threats, I
instructed to hold the flag march with the participation of thousands on
its [traditional] route, as usual and according to procedure.""We
dealt heavy blows to our aggressors in the Gaza Strip, and I believe
that the message was received not only by them, [but] also in other
places in our region, who witnessed the impressive operational
capabilities of the State of Israel."
"If another reminder is required to
renew the deterrence - it will also come. We changed the equation."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
 |
| Israelis sing and dance with flags by Damascus gate to Jerusalem's Old city as they mark Jerusalem Day. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters |
How
is it that the world looks on and sneers at the Jewish Israeli
celebrations of Flag Day, a national holiday a national memorial to the
resumption of Jewish life in Judea/Israel and its ancient City of David,
Jerusalem? Other countries are permitted to celebrate their national
days without attracting the kind of criticism that Israel does. Reports
of 'ultra-nationalists' waving Israeli flags portray them as being
infected with a type of dangerous nationalist sentiment posing as a
threat to others.
In
fact, threats came their way through the usual Islamist-terrorist
channels messaged by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, warning that
should the festival mood of celebrating the reborn nation and its flag
be pursued, violence would result once again, yet again, forever again,
against Israel and its people. Conversely, the world's legacy news media
fail to see anything remarkable in those threats; as long as it happens
in Israel, to Jews, that violence can be tolerated. After all, they
shrug, Israel is an occupying power.
 |
Israeli police stand guard as visitors tour Al-Aqsa compound, known to
Jews as Temple Mount, amid tensions ahead of the annual flag march which
marks Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem May 18, 2023. REUTERS/Sinan Abu
Mayzer
|
An
'occupying power' in its very own ancestral land, where Jews from
antiquity to the present lived their lives, yearning for the day to
arrive when their extended family in a diaspora would finally return to
claim their Biblical-era patrimony, the geography where Judaism was born
and set the world alight with the messages of godliness and tolerance
and respect and the Ten Commandments that set out in pithy form what
civilization required of humanity.
Jews
have dreamt for millennia of a return to their Holy Land, wrested from
its indigenous Jews by conquest-seeking, territorial occupiers. Nowhere
on Earth were Jews able to find peace and security living in nations of
the world that invariably found fault with this tiny
ethnic-social-cultural-religious group of survivors. Until the time when
their very survival was placed in dire jeopardy and half the world's
population of Jews was annihilated.
 |
| Israelis wave national flags during a march marking Jerusalem Day, just outside Jerusalem's Old City. Maya Alleruzzo/AP |
Now,
at a time when Jews have been reunited with their history, their
heritage, their memory-sacred places of their very existence, constant
threats of genocidal intention continue. Jews live in hope never-ending,
their critics for whom antisemitism represents a visceral reaction to
the very idea of Judaism, much less a return to Zion so passionately
held by a people taught through adversity that it has no friends and
supporters and must be self-reliant, understand that they are their own
friendly support.
So
once a year they celebrate themselves, their heritage, their culture,
religion, and very existence, symbolized by an identifying flag, flown
high and proud in their ancient capital, Jerusalem. The world doesn't
have to approve, or to like it as it continues to denigrate the passion
of Jews for their homeland. But it really should stop commenting on the
Temple Mount as representing a place sacred to Palestinian Arabs who
feel they have a right to claim Jerusalem as their own.
 |
| Palestinians take part in a protest against the holding of the
annual flag march in Jerusalem which marks Jerusalem Day, at the
Israel-Gaza border fence east of Gaza City May 18, 2023.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem |
And
writing of Israeli Jews 'touring' the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the
Old City, Islamic places of reverence that supplanted the ancient
Temples of Solomon, the most sacred of symbols for Jews. In a Jewish
country, where Arabs are permitted to live in peace among Jews, along
with other ethnic and religious groups in a generous democracy,
forgiving of the hostility directed at Jews and Judaism, non-Jews may
not, cannot, should not, will not dictate to Jews whether they may or
may not celebrate the unity of Jerusalem as Judean.
The
rage and anger of Muslims over Jewish feet on the Temple Mount, where
Islam denies Jews the right to pray on their own sacred soil in their
own country is intolerable, a reflection of the rank intolerance of
Israel's neighbours and some of its own citizens.
 |
| Israelis sing and dance with flags by Damascus gate to Jerusalem's Old
city as they mark Jerusalem Day, in Jerusalem May 18, 2023.
REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun |
Labels: Flag Day, International Hypocrisy, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Arab Hostility, Threats
Sovereign Israel
"The
Temple Mount is open to everyone and if Hamas thinks that if it
threatens me, it will deter me, let them understand that times have
changed."
"No Israeli government that I'm a member of is going to bow to a
despicable and murderous terror organization... and if Hamas thinks that
I'll be deterred by its threats, it needs to accept that times have
changed and that there's a government in Jerusalem."
"The Temple Mount is open to everyone."
National Security Minister Ben Gvir, Israel
 |
| Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) visiting the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Jan. 3, 2023. Source: Facebook. |
Israel
has a newly-elected government. Yet another newly-elected government.
Headed, once again by its most seasoned politician, a man who has
withstood much in the greater interests of promoting Israel's security.
This is the third government he will have led. A former military man, he
knows that Israel must appear to its neighbours as an invincible,
formidable adversary that will respond with the ferocity of existential
imperative to their violent incursions in efforts to destroy the tiny
geographic parcel representing a tiny proportion of its historical
ancestral landmass.
Never again will
Jews be trapped by a hostile world without a country, a slice of
geography of their own, with their own effective, self-protective
military and intelligence services to warn beforehand and to secure its
presence against malign usurpation. An ancient people, an ancient land,
an ancient culture and its religious devotion to a singular spiritual
guide that inspired two other great religions that took from Judaism
their guiding principles and values.
Both
of which, Christianity and Islam, felt entitled to pick from the sacred
scriptures of Judaism, what suited them from their perspectives and in
the process spite the source, insisting theirs are the final words of
the unifying divinity of humanity. Both institutions reverenced the
monotheistic revelation of the Supreme Spirit, while denying the
authentic originality of its introduction. And both institutions have
traditionally persecuted the original source.
Jews
refuse to remain a pathetic, friendless ethnic group imploring others
to come to their defense, knowing from past experience there will be no
saving response. Israel is the response of the global Jewish community
to a world indifferent to the plight of Jews when the most barbaric
extermination of human life was methodically undertaken to destroy
Jewish life, culture, society, memory. A government best positioned to
do just that is now viewed by the international community as
'right-wing', an epithet of rejection.
No
other national government on the planet is held to the standards that
Israel's is. In the General Assembly of the United Nations, the general
consensus is that Israel although a legally constituted country returned
to claim its ancestral geography, is itself illegal, because the land
is contested by those calling themselves indigenous, and taking the
identification of nomenclature along with attestations of originality
attached to Judaism's ancient cultural, religious, political and
socially significant sites.
An
Israeli Minister, duly democratically elected, is held to have
transgressed by setting foot on Judaism's most sacred site located in
the ancient capital of Judean ancestry, within a legally constituted
nation. Another religion, one that based itself on Judaism, claims
virtual ownership rights to the site located in the Jewish capital. A
capital that a group of migrated Arabs who settled from Egypt, Jordan
and Syria to call themselves Palestinians, taking that designation too
from the original Palestinian Jews as their own.
When
Islam was brought to Bedouin Arabs in the 7th Century, its founder
Mohammad's armies invaded the Arab Peninsula to force disparate
populations of pagans to accept Islam. In the process, in Medina, he
approached three Jewish tribes indigenous to the ancient city; the
Banu Nadir, the Banu Qainuqa, and the Banu Qurayza. All three refused
Mohammad's overtures to reject Judaism and adopt Islam. These indigenous
Jewish tribes were punished with violent conflict that massacred their
members and exiled others.
Now
it is seen as outrageous that Jews, living in Israel, and Jews visiting
from abroad, might wish to approach their own most sacred religious
site, to pray there. They cannot. When Israel signed a peace treaty with
Jordan it allowed Jordan to oversee the contested site, the Temple
Mount, where the (two iterations) Temple of Solomon once stood,
and which Islam names the Noble Sanctuary. There, Muslims may pray,
under the Jordan Waqf, but not Jews. It is a dictate of Islam and of the
surrounding Muslim-Arab nations.
Arab
Muslims in the Middle East, are affronted and infuriated that Jews
might mount their most sacred site, the third-most-sacred site in Islam.
And because a Jew on a mission to approach his own religion's original
sacred site while stating the obvious, that in Israel which is twenty
percent non-Jewish, with citizens who are Christian, Muslim, Druze, and
other religions no one is constrained from free movement of religious
devotion. Why then, should Jews be refused entry to their very own
religious site in its own capital, in its own country?
Labels: Israel, Jerusalem, Judaism, Temple Mount
Sacrilege in Al-Aqsa Mosque
Sacrilege in Al-Aqsa Mosque
"We are working to restore calm, on the Temple Mount and across Israel."
"Alongside
that, we are preparing for any scenario and the security forces are
ready for any task [n responding to violent Palestinian confrontations
and possible attacks]."
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
The
Abrahamic trio of Judaism, Christianity and Islam focus on the ancient
city of Jerusalem in their historical antecedents where Jews and
Christians and Muslims venerate sites sacred to their religious
traditions. This year, the traditional holy week holidays of Passover,
Easter and Ramadan fall close to each other on the calendar. In the
order of precedence, Passover celebrates an ancient memory of freedom
from exile in Egypt, predating by millennia the much later celebration
of a Jewish sage arising from the dead, and much later still,
introspection on the Prophet's revelation of the Koran.
When
Jordan took it upon itself to occupy the Old City of Jerusalem, it
banished Jews from their ancient habitation, and, until the war of 1967
which freed Jerusalem entirely from its control, no Jews were permitted
to access the most sacred site in Judaism. Israel has made every effort
possible to accommodate the religious and cultural traditions of the
faiths that erupted from the tradition of Judaism. Faiths which from
antiquity to the present have never given full respectful due to their
progenitor religion.
In
the peace accord signed between Israel and Jordan, it was agreed that
Jordan would continue to have authority through its Waqf over the
Islamic holy site--third in its pantheon of sacred places, after Mecca
and Medina--while Israel would retain the responsibility of maintaining
public order. Islam's Jerusalem holy site is the Noble Sanctuary, built
directly over the ruins of the infinitely older two Temples of Solomon.
Jordan's refusal to allow Jews entry to their most sacred site lives on
in Palestinian rage over Israeli Jews accessing the site though they are
forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount to appease Islam's sense of sole
entitlement.
During
Friday prayers, mosques throughout the world, including in Jerusalem
often incite the faithful to acts of civic disruption, targeting Israel
and Jews for violence. In Israel that takes the form of 'resistance' to
the 'occupation' of Jews in the Jewish state that has not been averse to
sharing its national state with people of other ethnic origins,
cultures, traditions and religions. Israel is established on a small
proportion of its original Judean heritage. Jews are held by Arab
Muslims to be 'occupying' land sacred to Islam whose presence must be
eradicated.
 |
| Palestinians clash with Israeli security forces at the Al Aqsa Mosque
compound atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City Friday, April 15,
2022. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) |
This
weekend, yet again, as on so many other occasions, violence erupted on
the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary, where Palestinian men and women
gathered at the Al Aqsa Mosque to protest Israel permitting Jews to be
present on the Temple Mount for Passover. What other country in the
world must pacify a minority population by disallowing the country's
indigenous majority to pray in their most holy of sanctuaries? Only
Israel, only Jews.
In
Friday's rioting where Palestinian mobs threw rocks and incendiary
devices at Israeli security forces, there to maintain order and peace
for worshippers of two religions, two ethnic groups, two cultures, two
traditions, 150 Palestinians sustained injuries as they clashed with
Israel riot police attempting to restore order that would allow peaceful
Israeli-Palestinian citizens to access the mosque and pray peacefully
in celebration of Ramadan. Palestinian rioters sustained injuries
incurred by rubber bullets, stun grenades and being beaten with police
batons according to the Palestine Red Crescent.
This,
at a time of particularly high alert following a number of deadly Arab
street attacks on Jews throughout the country in the past two weeks.
Israeli police described hundreds of Palestinians hurling firecrackers
and rocks at their forces. And nor did they spare the Jewish prayer
section of the Old City's Western Wall raining rocks down on the Jewish
faithful, following morning Ramadan prayers. For a religion that
celebrates itself as one of peace, it is beyond peculiar that Ramadan, a
time of peaceful introspection, all too often results in violent riots
perpetrated against Jews.
Hundreds
of rioting Palestinians were detained. And the Foreign Ministry of the
Palestinian Authority in reference to the violence that took place in
the holy compound stated it "holds Israel fully and directly responsible for this crime and its consequences",
when the crime was committed by Palestinians and Israel had no other
option but to restore order while bringing the rioters under control as a
'consequence' of their violent actions. Strange how skewed perspectives
can be. Yet a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
insisted that immediate intervention take place in the international
community to "stop Israeli aggression against Al Aqsa Mosque and prevent things from going out of control".
 |
Sacrilege in Al-Aqsa Mosque
|
Labels: Israel Defence Forces, Jerusalem, Palestinian Violence, Ramadan, Temple Mount
Inchoate Death Rage
"[Statements that Hamas was employing] peaceful resistance [against Israel represents] a clear terminological deception."
"When you have weapons that are being wielded by men who were able to
prevent the strongest army in the region from entering the Gaza strip
for 51 days, and were able to capture or kill soldiers of that army — is
this really ‘peaceful resistance?"
"When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the
public. This is peaceful resistance bolstered by a military
force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular
support."
Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahhar
"Our people and our boys will surprise the entire world with what they have in store."
"Let them wait for our big push. We will take down the border and we will tear out their hearts
from their bodies."
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar
The United States Congress passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995, recognizing Jerusalem formally and legally as the capital of Israel. It also called for Jerusalem to remain undivided. Ever since, successive American presidents have duly pledged full implementation on their watch of this law, that would lead to the relocation of the American Embassy currently in Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem. And each president since then, has made use of a mechanism for procedural delay, choosing to waive a final decision every six months, in preference to committing themselves to the Act.
Until now, that is. When, yesterday, American legislators and Israelis met together in a triumph of achievement in finally, under the current Trump administration, recognizing for fact what is a reality, that Jerusalem is indeed the capital of the State of Israel. The announcement of the intended move made back in January of this year, brought universal scathing censure down on the United States. From the United Nations to the European Union, African nations and Asian, the rote response was the final designation would only be legalized when a peace agreement was reached between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Palestinians have made that impossible, refusing one peace offer after another, unremittingly. The secret agenda, boldly stated in Arabic, covertly made evident to those supporting the Palestinians' aspiration to destroy the Jewish state by 'right of return' or outright conflict, or a combination of all, aligned with manipulating the membership of the United Nations with the influence of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to malign and slander and deprive Israel of legitimacy, leading to its delegitimization.
With the formal ceremony taking place on Monday of the opening of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem, Hamas orchestrated yet another massive 'peaceful protest' against Jerusalem falling to its original state as capital of Judea. Al Quds
(Arabic for Jerusalem) was never in Jewish hands, claim the Arabs, and is Islam's alone. Hamas has convinced Gaza's Palestinian youth that their mission in life is to sacrifice themselves in a mass effort to cross from Gaza into Israel to pave the way for Palestinians to 'return' to the land they lost to 'colonialist' Jews.
The scheme is a tired one, to claim that Palestinians were forced from their land by incoming Jews when for most of the Palestinians who fled in 1948 after David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, announced the formation of the Jewish State did so on the advice of an invading force comprised of Israel's Arab neighbours who attacked the nascent state with the intention of destroying it, wracking up their first failed conflict with Israel.
But truth and reality have no place in the Palestinian narrative that insists Jews have no heritage in the Middle East, much less in Jerusalem. Their claims validated by UNESCO, which has given heritage status of religious-cultural-heritage ancient Judaic sites to the Palestinians who never existed in the geography in question, the original Palestinians being the Jews, not Arabs. Now Palestinians ardently proving t heir loyalty to the viral hostility they have been imbued with since childhood challenge the Israel Defence Forces protecting Israel's border from Palestinian incursion.
Ensuing deaths and casualties of Palestinians defying IDF orders to refrain from approaching the separating border fence, much less crossing it, plays right to Hamas's playbook. The violence provoking the Israeli military response overlooked by an international community which never has to face the vicious violence Israel's Jewish communities fear, condemn Israel for its 'disproportionate' response to 'peaceful' demonstrations. Behind the spontaneity of the burning tires, slingshots and Molotov-cocktail-carrying kites there are Hamas operatives attempting to breach the border.
What would those countries condemning Israel's response in view of past incursions ending with the death of Israelis, do themselves to protect their populations from threats of violence carried out with the barbaric zeal of collective psychopaths?
Labels: Conflict, Defence, Heritage, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinians, Security
The "Impudent" U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and the Statesmanlike Senior Palestinian Representative
"President Abbas declared the landmark Oslo Peace Accords dead. He
rejected any American role in peace talks. He insulted the American
President. He called for suspending recognition of Israel. He invoked an
ugly and fictional past, reaching back to the 17th century to paint
Israel as a colonialist project engineered by European powers."
"A speech that indulges in outrageous and discredited conspiracy
theories is not the speech of a person with the courage and the will to
seek peace."
"I ask here today, where is the Palestinian King Hussein? Where is
the Palestinian Anwar Sadat. If President Abbas
demonstrates he can be that type of leader, we would welcome it. His
recent actions demonstrate the total opposite."
Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
 |
| US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley speaks during a UN Security Council
meeting on the Middle East on December 18, 2017, at UN Headquarters in
New York. (AFP Photo/Kena Betancur) |
"Nikki Haley needs to shut up and realize that the Palestinian
leadership is not the problem. Instead,
the problem is the Israeli occupation and the policies it continues to
pursue. I’m not saying that we don’t make mistakes; every society and
every government makes mistakes."
"[The
goal of Israel and the United States is to] undermine the Palestinian
national project. American and Israeli officials are saying that any
Palestinian leader who
insists on East Jerusalem becoming the capital of Palestine and is
committed to the right of return, in accordance with United Nations
resolution 194, should be removed from power and replaced."
"She called for overthrowing the democratically elected Palestinian
president. This is the president who led the peace process
and promoted the principle of the two-state solution. Now this [US] ambassador is accusing him of lacking
courage, and is calling for replacing him. The
Palestinian people are loyal to their martyrs, prisoners, wounded,
struggles, steadfastness, and heroism. This is the reality. The
Palestinians are the only ones who are entitled to hold their leaders
accountable."
"The Palestinian leadership has told the Americans and Israelis that,
even after 1,000 years, they will not find any Palestinian who will
collaborate with their scheme. We will take Trump’s decision [to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of
Israel] to the International Court of Justice and we will seek
membership in more international agencies."
"We don’t seek a confrontation or a fight with the US administration. On
the contrary — they are the ones taking several steps. The US
administration is itself saying that it’s not an honest broker in the
peace process. Therefore, we are seeking, together with international
parties, to convene an international conference for peace."
PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat
Palestinians have been incited by their Palestinian Authority leaders
over the decades to resist any calls for 'normalization' with Israel
which might lead to diminished tensions. When matters become too calm,
intifadas are urged, to remind Israel and the Jews living there that
their time is numbered according to the Palestinian calendar. It is a
schedule spoken in Arabic. In English another schedule entirely appears;
one of a wish for the two solitudes to be reconciled to the reality of
two separate and sovereign nations.
In the Palestinian playbook, however, there is but one geography, from
the river to the sea, the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, and maps
produced for PA television and school curricula show that the geography
is absent the State of Israel; only the entire area marked "Palestine"
is honoured as the reality yet to be re-established. Short-circuiting
'peacekeeping' talks by appealing directly to the United Nations and its
various arms, firmly held in the control of the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation and its Unaligned coterie, ensure a sympathetic hearing to
the Palestinians' plaints.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has reviled the United
States, spoken with utter contempt of the financial lifeline of billions
it has received in the past 70 years to keep Palestinian 'refugees'
afloat and their leaders in secret affluence, maligned the President of
the United States, slandered Jews and Israel, but this is his right as a
duly, democratically elected leader, even if subsequent elections after
the expiration of his mandate have been long overdue, somewhat reducing
the legitimacy of his authority.
It is typical of the Palestinians that they have the right through
divine entitlement to bellicosely threaten repercussions, to express
vengeful hatred of others, yet recoil in injured innocence when their
utterings are reciprocated. Erekat knows very well that the agenda being
pursued by the Palestinian Authority, after persuading the European
community that they seek peace, and abhor violence when the Arab
conspiracy of linked national military forces were unable to destroy
Israel, has become more subtly in line with the goal of destroying
Israel through sheer force of numbers.
Numbers of refugees, to succeed where the numbers of armies deployed
failed to. The original 700,000 Palestinians who fled as 'refugees' from
a 1948 theatre of war that guaranteed them a swift return on the ashes
of nascent Israel have since bloomed into an estimated five million
successors whose 'right of return' would overwhelm Jewish majority
status in Israel, rendering the Jewish State non-functional to its
original purpose; as a homeland-haven for world Jewry on the geography
of its original, ancient heritage.
A heritage that includes the exalted, sacred presence of the ruins of
the Temples of Solomon, the original, destroyed by Assyrians, and its
ancient replacement destroyed by Imperial Rome, each leading to
expulsions and a diaspora. The most sacred sites in Judaism, not merely
symbolic, but the heart and soul of the nation. Not only have the
Palestinians co-opted the term "Palestinian" whose authentic meaning was
descriptive of the original Jews living in the territory, but also
Judaism's saints and iconic historical sites commemorating Judaic events
and notables.
The immense Temple of Solomon seated atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem
is symbolic of the never-ending story of Jewish persecution. Over the
ruins of the second Temple were built Islamic structures, the Dome of
the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, the elevation named by Arabs the Noble
Sanctuary from whence the Prophet Mohammad was said to have ascended on a
horse, up to heaven. When east Jerusalem was illegally occupied by
Jordan, its Jewish residents were killed or exiled. No Jews were
permitted entry.
Now, the PA insists there is no Judaic history nor heritage presence
there, despite the ancient presence of the Western Wall which is all
that is left of the Temple, and where Jews come to pray. Palestinians
will not permit Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, and their occasional
presence there becomes the occasion for threats, shouted insults,
rock-throwing and other incidents of vandalism and violence against
their presence. The PA's Mahmoud Abbas speaks of Jewish feet 'defiling'
the Noble Sanctuary, inciting Palestinians to attack and to kill Jews.
It is these vicious attacks against Jewish men, women and children
causing death by Palestinians urged to mount such deadly attacks that
the Palestinian Authority honours by speaking of "martyrs" deserving of
hero status, of having streets, buildings and squares named in their
honour, teaching impressionable children that they too, can grow to
become martyrs, and insisting that it is their right and sacred
obligation to guarantee generous pay-outs to the families of "martyrs",
the "wounded" and the "imprisoned" out of funds derived from
international sources for the upkeep of the Palestinians.
Insisting that East Jerusalem, the seat of Israel's original capital in
antiquity three thousand years ago, for which more than ample
archaeological and scriptural evidence exists, is really the birthright
of Arab Palestinians, the PA succeeded in persuading UNESCO to recognize
all Judaic historical sites and icons as those of historical
Palestinians, when the original Palestinians were Jews, in the process
transferring them by UNESCO decree to the proud heritage of Arabs.
That recognition has aided the Palestinian Authority's entitlement
claims to Jerusalem as a Palestinian state capital, leaving the Jewish
presence and historical claims of legitimacy in a state of reality being
trumped by political chicanery. The entitlements expressed by
Palestinian Arabs know no bounds, including the claims by Mahmoud Abbas
of a Jewish conspiracy to make the world believe that Jews ever lived in
the Middle East, much less that their Prophets, including Christ, was a
Jew.
They suffer, en masse, from a monumental psychological disorder that in
Yiddish is called 'chutzpah' portraying themselves as victims of Jewish
aggression, helpless and miserable under the heel of a Jewish conspiracy
to commit genocide against an entire people, by another people who
claimed they were victims of mass extermination by a fascist regime held
in high regard by Palestinians in the 1940s, to the present day.
Labels: Conflict, Heritage, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, United States
Making Peace With WarMongers
"We
will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they
have done to us — a believer shall not be stung twice in the same
place."
"The deal of the century is the slap of the century. However, we’ll get back at them."
"Israel has killed Oslo. It has terminated Oslo. Now
we are an authority without any authority, and an occupation without
land, and we will not accept this."
"Damn your money!. He said, ‘I will give
you a peace deal.’ The deal turned out to be a mess. He said, ‘We will
not pay for the Palestinians because they stopped the negotiations.’
Where are the negotiations?"
"We are in a fateful moment of history. If we lose Jerusalem, what do you want to do? Have a state
with Abu Dis as its capital? This is what they’re offering now: Abu
Dis."
"They asked me to meet him. I said: ‘Him? No, I won’t
meet him.’ Not here, not outside the country, in Amman or Washington. I
will not meet this man."
"This is a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness. The Jews were used as a tool under the concept of the
promised land — call it whatever you want. Everything has been made up."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
 |
| President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian
Authority, second from right, addressing the Palestinian Central Council
in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday.
Credit
Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press |
"If the Oslo process is dead,
as suggested by Abbas, it would follow that the Palestinian Authority
and its leadership are irrelevant."
"It’s
time to find alternative Palestinian leaders and
alternative peace plans that focus on building bridges between real
people on the ground instead of making people like Abbas rich and
famous."
Oded
Revivi, spokesman, Yesha Council, West Bank
"They think it means Palestinians will take the Israeli ID and live under an apartheid regime. But our idea is to have one democratic state, with no privilege for the Jews or for any other ethnic or religious group."
Radki Jarai, Popular Movement for One Democratic State
"I would never give citizenship to the masses of the Arab population in Judea and Samaria [West Bank]."
Yoav Kisch, Likud, Member of Knesset
"If the two-state solution dies, it will be the responsibility of Israel, not the Palestinians. But if the Israelis kill it, which they're in the process of doing now, unfortunately with the help of Trump's administration, then the only option will be for us to fight the apartheid system and bring it down, which means one state with equal rights for everybody."
Mustafa Barghouti, member, P.L.O. central council
As a member of the P.L.O. Mr. Barghouti, held in such respect by the international community as a man of peaceful mien, prepared to live with the State of Israel, as long as it is subordinate to the Palestinians' wish to dominate, seems totally, spectacularly unaware that the P.L.O envisages a one-state solution and always has, and is not prepared to accommodate in any measure the much-anticipated two-state solution. The Palestinian Authority, Fatah, part of the P.L.O. has long issued maps where Israel is absent and 'Palestine' occupies the entire geography.
Israeli negotiators, and particularly under the leadership of two previous prime ministers (see Ehud Barak), offered Palestinian negotiators all that they demanded, and it still was not persuasive enough to conclude a peace agreement resulting in two separate states side by side. The PA never failed to respond to agreement by Israel of its far-reaching demands by extending those demands, itself never once bothering to negotiate in good faith, let alone being prepared to sacrifice anything, but demanding constant sacrifice of Israel. The anxiety to conclude a peace agreement was entirely one-sided.
Now, with the latest negotiations that have been in limbo for years while Mahmoud Abbas refused to return to the bargaining table despite the ongoing appeals of Israeli officials, Abbas sloughs off any responsibility as he huffs and puffs in irate aggrievement, wallowing in the victimhood status so beloved of the Palestinians as they appeal to the international community to condemn Israel's apartheid occupation. Occupation? Self defence time and again fighting off Arab armies attacking Israel, the final conflict restoring Israel's heritage in Jerusalem where Jordanian rule had ostracized any Jewish presence. On the other hand, Abbas vowed he would allow no Jews to live in a Palestinian state.
Apartheid? There is equality and citizenship rights in Israel with an impartial judicial system guaranteeing rights of citizenship. Arabs have their own parliamentary representation in opposition, and are permitted to contest any laws and go so far as to support militant Palestinian violence, but are not prepared to leave Israel to live under Palestinian rule in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority wants a capital presence in Jerusalem? They've been given an offer, but not one that will give them control of the Old City, sacred to Judaism.
The offer to carve out those areas within Israel with majority Muslim populations for Palestinian rule was rejected by the Arabs living in those areas who prefer to remain under Israeli rule, and one unacquainted with what life is like under Palestinian rule might wonder why. That offer was contingent on the Palestinian Authority agreeing to transfer those areas to Israeli rule in the West Bank occupied by settlers, so neither would lose land, but that too was met with upturned nose.
The demand that Israel permit the 'return' of six million Arabs representing the offspring of the original 700,000 that left Israel to await the outcome of the first collective Arab Middle East military attack against the fledgling Jewish state, and were recognized as 'refugees' by the United Nations represents yet another effort to dilute the Jewish presence and render Israel an Arab, not a Jewish state. Those two sticking points; return and Jerusalem represented the most potent demands each of which would destroy Israel.
Underlying all of the negotiations were the assurances from the Palestinian leadership to the Palestinians that it was their intention to restore to the Arab Palestinians the geography that would become Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. To continue claiming victimhood status characterizing Israel as an aggressive oppressor in view of the violent attacks launched by incitement of the PA to ensure that Palestinians would never agree to 'normalization' of relations with Israel; painting Israel as the aggressor and Palestinians as victims is a classic Palestinian/Arab technique.
Lest Israel have any illusions about what life might be like for Jews under a single state dominated by Arabs they might cast their minds' eye back to recent history and pogroms, an importation from eastern Europe finding great popularity in the Middle East. And keep their eyes on Hamas in Gaza which has never deviated from its core goal and mandate to destroy the State of Israel and push its Jews into the sea. When Ariel Sharon ordered Israeli settlements and the Israeli military out of Gaza that experiment to return the strip to Palestinian control was ample demonstration of Arab goodwill.
The ongoing construction of complex, expensive tunnels burrowing from Gaza into Israel for the purpose of giving entry to terrorist fighters to Jewish villages and towns and military outposts speaks volumes of the hopelessness of any efforts for peace between intransigent, deadly Hamas dedicated along with Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria to the destruction of Israel.
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An Israeli jeep drives near where Israeli forces said they had destroyed an attack tunnel from Gaza, December 10, 2017. Amir Cohen
|
Labels: Conflict, Heritage, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinians
Venom in a Vacuum?
"I was pleased that she did not respond [to the provocations and jeers
as she showed up for work wearing her police uniform]. She
has thick skin, just like an elephant, and that's important in our
society. Silence is the best response."
"We are part of this society [as Israeli citizens], so we should serve
it. The people attacking her are a gang of wild kids with nothing better
to do with their lives. They should go find themselves and think about
what, if anything, they have actually done on behalf of their
community [in a predominately Arab town in Israel]."
Ali Saadi, Arab Israeli, Bedouin village of Basmat Tabun
"The new generation that has grown up sees the truth and
feels a sense of belonging and identification. It understands the mood
in the community much better than you and realizes that many of the
problems facing Arab society are the result of those slogans, lies, and
conspiracy theories that you have been peddling to us to benefit
yourselves."
Mohammad Kabiya, Israel Defense Forces air force member, from the Bedouin northern Israeli village of Kaabiyye
 |
| Sabrin Saadi, Facebook |
The Injaz Center for Professional Arab Local Governance in Israel
conducted a comprehensive study published in 2015 on the scope of crime
and violence in Israel's Arab sector. It found that a dramatic rise in
that sector in crime occurred since 2007, in parallel with an associated
rise in incarcerated Arabs. Arabs made up 42% of all prisoners in
Israeli jails in 2010. That figure rose by 2014 to 49% and statistics
further showed an over-representation of youthful Arabs between the ages
of twelve and eighteen, when Arabs represent 20% of the total
population of Israel.
In response to that very real problem, new police stations were
positioned in two Arab villages in the north of Israel; Jisr az-Zarqa,
and Kafr Kanna. In an effort to assure the population of a shoring up of
the presence of police to address the situation, the two stations were
properly staffed and prepared to act as required to protect the towns'
populations. A swift response erupted mere days later when a short video
showed up on Facebook.
In the video a young policewoman from a nearby Bedouin village was shown
in uniform wearing a hijab on her way to the Kafr Kanna station.
Assembled around her was a group of young demonstrators, loudly cursing
her and spitting their contempt toward her. Policewoman Sabrin Saadi
appeared to take no notice, continued on her way, and entered the police
station to begin her day's work.
She may not have visibly reacted to the virulently hateful provocation,
calling her a traitor to the Palestinian 'cause', aiding the
'occupation' in the vilest of taunting terms, but when she returned home
after her shift, she spoke with her father, telling him how she had
been affected by the demonstration. He encouraged her to continue on
just as she was doing, that her aspiration to become a police officer
spoke to her dedication to her country, and her wish to represent it in
the critical maintenance of law and order.
Ms. Saadi and other Bedouin, Arab and Druze citizens of Israel who
choose to serve their country's military and police services are in the
minority, but they represent Israelis who value their citizenship and
the nation that promotes their place in society as equals even while the
majority choose to oppose the very notion of a Jewish state. The irony
here is that most Arab Israelis prefer to live within Israel rather than
under the Palestinian Authority, and they oppose any notion of
transferring their villages to Palestinian rule under a nascent Arab
state.
 |
| A Palestinian protestor lights a tire on fire during clashes with
Israeli security forces in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on December
29, 2017, following the weekly Muslim Friday prayers (AFP / Musa al
Shaer) |
With the American declaration of the recognition of east Jerusalem as
Israel's capital meriting the official move of the U.S. Embassy in Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem where all Israel government offices are located, the
Palestinian 'resistance' and anti-'normalization' went into overdrive.
Outrage and resistance to the U.S. administration's controversial move
was instant and virulent, with promises of violent reaction
materializing in a new intifada, incited by fiery defiance speeches by
President Mahmoud Abbas, and echoed by Hamas.
Palestinian youth nursed and nourished from the cradle through their
formative and educational years on hatred and opposition to Israel and
the presence of a Jewish State took to the new intifada with enthusiasm
as more reason to riot, storm the streets and enact their opposition in
time-honoured Palestinian flourishes of burning tires, rocket barrages
and rock-throwing along with Molotov cocktails at Israeli security.
The exception was those among the Arab population who have recognized
and sought out their futures with Israel. For Sabrin Saadi it meant she
is not on her own, there are friends who will support her and defend
her, among them Mohammad Kabiya who had enlisted in the IDF and who
takes pains to speak with her almost daily with the promise that he and
his friends are determined to do all they are able to reassuring her she
has chosen to do the right thing. Those led by the Islamic Movement
will be restrained from harming her or other young Arabs following her
example.
According to IDF airman Kabiya, activists from the Arab Balad party
joined their opposition with the Islamist demonstrators who speak of the
new police stations as an Israeli plot to gain control over Arab
villages. A member of the Israeli Knesset, Jamal Zahalka, who is the
Balad party chairman, took part in one of those demonstrations reviling
Sabrin. Arab Israelis are able to elect their own representatives to
reflect their interests in Israel's Parliament, and as parliamentary
members go out of their way to suborn the state, serving the
anti-'normalization' interests of Islamists.
"This
is no friendly hello. The Israel Police are spreading lies. We have
seen that there has been no drop in crime rates in those settlements in
which a police station has already been established",
claimed Zahalka, that the stations have been placed in Arab villages for
one purpose; to track young Arabs for security purposes, and not the
stated reason linked to community safety. His purpose, to condemn the
initiative of Israeli Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan.
In point of fact, when public safety and security violations take place
with impunity in villages and towns it is the residents who suffer from
crime and violence. And since most of the violence is done at the hands
of those youth, it makes eminent good sense to 'track' them for
'security purposes', since tracking them is completely linked to the
goal of achieving community safety. But this MK's purpose in condemning
the initiative and slandering its purpose spurns logic and courts a
backlash of the very type of violence he claims to be non-existent.
 |
| Palestinian protesters run for cover as tear gas is fired towards them
by Israeli security forces during clashes in the West Bank city of
Bethlehem on December 29, 2017, following the weekly Muslim Friday
prayers. (AFP / Musa al Shaer) |
In the village of Salem, in northern Israel, children there are bedded
down in bathroom bathtubs at night so they won't be hit by random
gunfire. Violence in the Arab sector continues. A report published in
Haaretz
described the gun battles that take place each night in the village of
Salem. Policewoman Saadi's father feels that the verbal assaults his
daughter copes will won't evolve into physical violence, since there are
many from his village and from Kafr Kanna who have offered support and
encouragement to his daughter.
Several lawyers from the Arab sector have offered to represent her pro
bono, to help her and any other young people, should she decide to bring
charges of defamation against those who attack her.
In the greater scheme of things, there are so many loud voices calling
for 'resistance' against the 'oppressor', in the process of winning
influence and control over the young and the malleable who want to
believe that a great wrong has been done their community, the uphill
battle of Mr. Saada and his daughter seems impossible.
 |
| A young boy insults US President Donald Trump and threatens Israel
during a Hamas rally in Gaza, December 2017. (Screen capture: MEMRI
video) |
In a shocking display of just how influential Palestinian groups like Fatah
(the PLO group of Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority)
and Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip are in their mind-control over
vulnerable young Palestinians, a boy of no more than eight years of age,
fully dressed in Hamas military gear complete with face mask, screamed a
diatribe at a December 15 Hamas rally in Gaza threatening
"Trump the idiot", and
"Netanyahu, son of Jewish woman". The video clip has been shared widely on Palestinian social media.
"This is a message to Trump the idiot. You idiot, your promise to
Israel will not be successful. You idiot, Jerusalem is the capital of
Palestine for all eternity."
“I say to that idiot Benjamin Netanyahu, you son of a Jewish woman, you
don’t know your own origins. Here in
Gaza, we will trample the heads of your soldiers underfoot, like we did
in Nahal Oz [A Hamas gunmen attack from a tunnel, infiltrating an Israeli army base, killing five soldiers in 2014]."
"Here in Gaza there are men who do not fear death. Get it, you son of
a Jewish woman? You have no source in history. Get it, you son of a
Jewish woman? Jerusalem is ours, it is our capital. We will
not relinquish a single inch of the land of Palestine. Get it, you son
of a Jewish woman? Get it, you son of a Jewish woman?"
"You have never existed in history. Get it, you idiot? If
you don’t get it, we, the children of Gaza, will trample you underfoot
until you get it. Get it, you son of a Jewish woman? Peace and Allah’s
mercy and blessings upon you."
Ahmad Idriss, Gaza
 |
| Palestinian Muslim worshipers take part in a demonstration against the
US president’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,
outside the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City’s al-Aqsa
mosque compound on December 29, 2017. (AFP / Musa al Shaer)AFP / Ahmad
Gharabli) |
From Gaza, groups like Islamic Jihad fire missiles over the border into
Israel in an expression of their cordial respects for the Jewish State.
Hamas repeatedly emphasizes a new intifada, inciting all Palestinians to
violently confront soldiers and settlers. At the Gaza border fence
where Gazan Palestinians cross into Israel -- including family members
of the leaders of Hamas -- for expert medical care at Israeli hospitals,
Ismail Haniyeh the Hamas leader, gives high praise to the "blessed
intifada", urging that Jerusalem be liberated.
One young mother dressed in a black burqa, her face mask etched with the
Hamas emblem, brought her baby to the rally, so he would come
"to love Hamas and the Al-Qassam Brigades" (the terrorist armed wing of Hamas).
"We
bring our small children to teach them to love Hamas. No matter what
the Jews or the Arab world do to Hamas, we will support it", she said to an interviewer, above the screams of her baby.
Labels: Conflict, Hamas, Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, United States
Canada, Steadfast Ally of Israel
"Canada is a steadfast ally and friend of Israel and friend to the
Palestinian people. Canada's longstanding position is that the status of
Jerusalem can be resolved only as part of a general settlement of the
Palestinian-Israeli dispute. This has been the policy of consecutive
governments, both Liberal and Conservative."
Global Affairs Canada statement
 |
| Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged to stand by Israel 'through fire
and water' and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
several times CBC |
Under the previous Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, Israel could have no doubt whatever that Canada supported it in
every conceivable way, recognizing it formally and informally as a
counterpart democracy and a legitimate homeland for the Jewish people
restored to their heritage position in the Middle East. PM Harper had
little patience for the United Nations' constant sanctions against
Israel, ignoring the plight of people living under the deplorable
dictatorships of its neighbours in a powerful Islamic bloc that
continually slammed Israel for human rights abuses they themselves
regularly indulged in, but Israel did not.
Under the Trudeau administration, Canada has continued to block
resolutions brought to the Security Council and the UN Human Rights
agenda, condemning Israel for one contrived reason or another, charges
brought against it by the very same human rights abusers who have long
transformed the purpose of the United Nations in upholding universal
human rights and equality, into a forum for the world's most vicious
human rights abusers to stand in sanctimonious judgement of nations with
a stellar position on human rights. But the very fact that Canada
opposes corrupt resolutions is merely a reflection of the fact that it
should, that it is morally obligated to do so.
That it reflects a specific bias in favour of Israel is not in fact the
case. In very point of fact, Canada states its official position being
that of equal favour to both Israel and the Palestinians, neutral on the
issues that divide them, supportive only of the fiction that a
two-state solution is achievable, when the Palestinian Authority has
proven time and again, despite hypocritically claiming to the contrary,
that it has no intention of cooperating in the forging of a peace
treaty, nor officially arriving at an agreement that would result in two
separate, sovereign states.
The statement that the PA is so fond of, that it disseminates in Arabic to the Palestinians is a Palestinian State
from the river to the sea;
from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, reflective of its official
map that has erased Israel from existence. Yet the Western fiction of
the Palestinians working toward peace and the establishment of two
states persists, enabling PA President Mahmoud Abbas to prosecute his
plan to achieve greater legitimacy of a Palestinian state in de facto
existence, giving it status in the United Nations and within its member
bodies.
Trudeau's Canada believes that there is a global obligation, reflective of a motion that was brought before the UN, to
"promote the realization of the
inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to
self-determination, to support the achievement without delay of an end
to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and of the two-state
solution on the basis of the pre-1967 border." That
"occupation" resulted from an all-out conflict imposed yet again on
Israel, which it successfully repulsed, gaining the territories in
question, as a result.
The
"occupation"
is one of self-protection, defense from constant violent attacks
inspired by the Palestinian leadership in the Palestine Liberation
Organization's Fatah movement and that of Hamas; the former aspiring to
achieve the downfall of Israel through furtively organic means including
incitement to popular violence, the latter directly and equally
infamously, through violent military offences. If the Palestinian
leadership were prepared to settle differences reasonably, there would
be no "occupation" because there would be no threat to the existence of
Israel. But the byword is to refuse "normalization"; recognition and
acceptance of Israel's existence.
Last December, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, China and
162 other UN member-nations gave their unequivocal support to UN
resolution 17/96, guaranteeing the
protections of the Geneva Convention to Palestinian civilians in the
occupied territories, when there is no real and actual threat to
Palestinian civilians other than those they themselves provoke through
incitement to violence, threats to destroy Israel, and never-ending
incidents of deadly violence.
 |
| Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital despite intense Arab,
Muslim and European opposition to a move that would upend decades of
U.S. policy and risk potentially violent protests. (Evan
Vucci/Associated Press) |
The most recent resolution brought by Turkey and Yemen in the United
Nations to the general assembly against the American announcement by the
Trump administration that it was finally in favour of committing to
relocating its embassy now in Tel Aviv to the de facto capital of Israel
in Jerusalem, to impose pressure brought by the weight of the world
body's censure of the U.S. was beyond absurd. Jerusalem is Israel's
capital, despite the Palestinians claiming prior heritage status of the
ancient city, when it was the capital of Judean Zion thousands of years
before Arabs and Islam entered history.
As a sheer matter of principle, were it not for the governing Liberals'
pride in their 'progressive' values, reason and intelligence should have
ensured that Canada would vote "no" to denounce the resolution damning
America for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. While the UN body
daintily quibbles its outrage over Jerusalem, North Korea and Iran in
their industrious commitment to ICBMs and nuclear warheads threatening
world stability become a non-issue. Turkey's murderous assaults on the
Kurds, Syria's on its own Sunni population and Yemen's deadly civil war,
mere trifles.
In choosing to abstain, Canada has, in essence, allied itself with
countries such as Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and Venezuela. The
result of the vote represented an exculpatory boost to the Organization
of Islamic Cooperation and the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas,
whose corrupt histrionics have been handsomely rewarded by the
Non-Aligned contingent and the European democracies which pride
themselves on their equanimity in the face of Islamist conquest,
alongside the craven inability of countries like Canada to face the
courage of the convictions they have mislaid along the way.
 |
| Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks during an extraordinary
meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul,
Turkey, December 13, 2017.
(photo credit: REUTERS/KAYHAN OZER/POOL)
|
Labels: Canada, Heritage, Israel, Jerusalem, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Palestinians, United Nations, United States
