ϟ Arab Spring? Palestinian Leaders Like Things Just The Way They Are!
Prof. Hillel Frisch, a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, has written a paper—The Palestinians are Part of the Old Arab Order.
He describes how the Palestinian Arabs continue to align themselves with the worst dictators of the Arab world, while their own governments in the West Bank and Gaza emulate the worst practices of the regimes of the old Arab order. They conduct themselves as one-party police-states, suppressing both the opposition and the media. While Palestinian Arabs demand the right to self-determination for themselves, they deny it to others.
Frisch writes:
Many have wondered since the begnning of the Arab upheavals why the Palestinians have not taken part in the hoped-for ‘Arab Spring.’ The answer is that with the positions they hold today, the Palestinians are an integral part of the old Arab order, and therefore are unable to participate in a democratic, tolerant Arab renaissance.
The Palestinians are part of the old Arab order because time and time again they have extolled the Arab leaders who make up the old Arab order and aligned themselves with the worst dictators of the Arab world.
With overwhelming Palestinian public support, PLO leader Yasser Arafat, risked international isolation and condemnation for himself, his people and his movement in order to support Saddam Hussein’s occupation of Kuwait. Saddam was the most brutal leader of the old Arab order. (After their liberation from Saddam, the Kuwaitis expelled over 100,000 Palestinians in retaliation for eager Palestinian cooperation in suppressing Kuwaiti citizens.)
This is the same Arafat, the same PLO, and the same Palestinian People who today rail against Israel.
After reviewing the support of Palestinian Arabs for Muslim dictators and the suppression of their citizens, Frisch examines what passes for the current Palestinian Arab leadership:
Both Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority and the Hamas government in Gaza are cut from the same cloth as the regimes of the old Arab order. They are one-party police-states whose main line of business is suppressing the opposition, incarcerating political prisoners, and denying media freedoms to the opposition. The rump parliaments in both the West Bank and Gaza have been moribund since the outbreak of Palestinian civil war in 2006.
The PLO itself is the ultimate example of the old Arab order. The dozen or more factions that constitute the PLO are over forty years old; yet in none of them has leadership change taken place except through the natural or unnatural death of the leader. The same can be said of the relatively younger Islamist Jihad al-Islami and Hamas movements. There is no internal democracy in these groups.
Remember: More than anything, the Arab upheavals of the past year are about instituting a change of leadership in the Arab world. The Palestinians are having none of that.
Frisch concludes on an optimistic note:
Does all this mean that the Palestinians are doomed, and barred from the promise of an Arab spring?
Not necessarily. Palestinians could begin a promising journey towards a democratic renaissance by acknowledging the rights they demand from Israel and the world to others. They could, for example, support the right to self-determination of the Kurdish, the Berber and the Jewish peoples, including recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. Palestinians could and should take a stand against the oppression of Egypt’s Copts. They could and should renounce Arab national movements that betray these principles. They could and should become a voice for civil rights if and when the new Islamist regimes in the Arab world begin to deny these rights to their minorities.
Without question, the journey to a Palestinian democratic spring is long and arduous. Fortunately, the Palestinians have an example nearby of a democratic and prosperous state worthy of emulation – Israel.
But to claim, as the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters do, that they are ready for an actual state now is to deny the daily reality of the hatred, corruption and incompetence that we regularly see emanating from the Palestinian leadership.
(Source: daledamos.blogspot.com)
ϟ Hamas Has Nothing to Teach Abbas About Promulgating Hate
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has just hired a new adviser, the Jerusalem Post reports. Mahmoud Awad Damra is one of the prisoners Israel freed to ransom kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in October; he was then five years into a 15-year sentence for his role as planner and logistics coordinator of several deadly terror attacks whose victims included three U.S. citizens. That, combined with his previous job running Yasser Arafat’s Force 17 security service, clearly qualifies him for his new role of advising Abbas on local government.
Two weeks ago, during a working visit to Turkey, Abbas took time out to meet with Amna Muna and 10 other convicted terrorists who were also freed in the Shalit deal, but whom Israel considered particularly dangerous and therefore refused to allow back into the West Bank. Muna used an Internet romance with a 16-year-old Israeli to lure him to Ramallah, where her partners in crime murdered him. When Israel protested this meeting, Abbas adviser Nimer Hamad insisted it was “natural” for a president to “meet his people wherever they are.” But of course: American and European presidents always make a point of meeting with convicted murderers during overseas trips – just like they always hire convicted terrorists as special advisers. Isn’t that how “moderate,” “peace-seeking” leaders are supposed to behave?
Then there’s the children’s magazine Zayzafuna, which is partially funded by the PA and has several PA officials on its advisory board, including Deputy Education Minister Jihad Zakarneh. As Palestinian Media Watch revealed in a damning expose, the magazine combines genuinely positive educational content with gems like an essay by a teenage girl citing Hitler as one of her four heroes, because he’s “the one who killed the Jews.” The essay describes a dream in which she meets all four; Hitler receives her thanks for the sage advice he offers.
After PMW’s report was published, the Simon Wiesenthal Center urged UNESCO to end its support for the magazine, and surprisingly, UNESCO promised to do so. But there’s been no similar contrition from the PA. Indeed, as PMW noted, the latest issue ofZayzafuna contains new gems: an essay by a school principal lauding Arafat for demanding “the liberation of all the Palestinian land, without bargaining, without compromise,” and a map that makes the same point by showing all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza painted as a Palestinian flag.
All this begs the question of why American taxpayers should be supporting such activity: While the Obama administration demanded UNESCO halt funding for Zayzafuna, it has simultaneously been urging Congress to approve funding for the PA – and since money is fungible, that helps Abbas finance projects like the magazine and Damra’s salary.
But it also underscores the absurdity of expecting the recent unity deal between Abbas’s Fatah party and Hamas to moderate the latter. When it comes to inciting terror and promulgating hatred of Jews and Israel, Hamas has nothing to teach Abbas, only something to learn: For unlike Hamas, Abbas has figured out how to traffic in hatred while still being lauded worldwide as a peace-maker.
ϟ Abbas’ demands violate Oslo
There is an interesting aspect of Abbas’ demand that there be a ‘halt’ to what he terms the construction of ‘settlements’. The word ‘settlement’ itself is carefully chosen to convey the sense of illegality and illegitimacy which Abbas desires to associate with Jewish presence in a land that has quite literally been Jewish for millenia, and which was Arab for nineteen years - and even then, only because of a crime against international law committed by the Jordanians in 1948.
Much more insidious, however, is Abbas’s demand that Israel not build in these areas. The very act of making such a demand constitutes a violation of the Oslo Accords, or more precisely of the Interim Agreements between the Israelis and the Arabs, signed and witnessed by the European Union, Egypt, Jordan, Russia, and Norway, and of course by the United States, on 28 September 1995 (see Article XVII, para. 1). See inter alia annex to UN document A/48/486-S/26560 dated 11 October 1993.
If you consult the above documentation, in particular Article 27 of Annex III (Civil Affairs Annex), you will note that full rights for construction powers are granted to the respective authorities (in this case, the Israeli Government, and the ‘PA’ or ‘Palestinian Authority’). Judea & Samaria were split into three zones: A, B and C. In Zone A, all control (including security) was handed over to the PA. In Zone B, all control except security, was handed over to the PA. Only in Zone C - which includes Israeli villages and Israeli military installations, was full control retained by the Israeli authorities. In all of these zones (including C), the situation was agreed upon by the Israelis, the ‘Palestinians’, and was given official sanction in the aforementioned UN documents (supra).
So in fact, it is legal and moral nonsense, to refer to Israel as ‘the occupying power’ in any of the above zones, or to assert that Israel must ‘halt construction’ in Zone C. During the discussions which led to the Interim Agreement of 1995, the PA had requested the addition of a ‘side letter’ which would restrict construction in Zone C. This request was ultimately withdrawn.
As for the ‘settlements’ themselves, the usual rationale for ‘illegality’ is that their existence is a violation of the IV Geneva Convention. This is not the case, because Article II of the aforementioned Convention deals with ‘partial or total occupation’ of the territory of a High Contracting Party. As Jordan’s seizure and subsequent annexation of Judea & Samaria came about following a war of aggression, Jordan does not enjoy this status. (International Law, Malcolm N. Shaw, Fifth Edition, Cambridge University Press 2003, pp. 1061-1063. See also Article XLII, Hague Regulations 1907 and A. Gerson, Israel, the West Bank and International Law). To accord the status of ‘High Contracting Party’ to Jordan from 1948 onwards would be to legitimize a posteriori armed aggression and land theft. [Obviously, the PLO is not a “high contracting party” either. - EoZ]
The second reason the Convention does not apply can be found in Paragraph 6 of Article XLIX, which states: ‘The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies’. To quote Prof. Eugene V. Rostow, former dean of Yale Law School and US Under Secretary of State, ‘The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are most emphatically volunteers. They have not been “deported” or “transferred” to the area by the Government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population it is the goal of the Geneva Convention to prevent’.
Also, to cite Professor Julius Stone (former Challis Professor of Jurisprudence and International Law at the University of Sydney and visiting Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales), ‘Irony would…be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that…the West Bank…must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6)’.
I repeat: there is no legal impediment whatsoever to Israeli construction in Zone C, and this is where the currently disputed ‘settlements’ are located. By demanding that construction be halted, Mahommed Abbas is committing yet another violation of the Oslo Accords (as he did when he went to the UN in September of 2011), and showing that neither he nor his ‘Palestinian Authority’ can be trusted.
I would add that the PLO leaders regularly say that Israel, by continuing to build in the areas of existing communities, are violating “signed agreements.” They seem to be referring to the Roadmap of 2003. But Israel made clear at the time that it did not accept certain parts of the roadmap, and spelled them out.
ϟ Illegal Weapons Captured Near Nablus
An IDF force stationed near Nablus captured two Palestinian men carrying an M-16 rifle, an Uzi, and matching ammunition yesterday. The two were taken in for investigation while the weapons themselves were confiscated by security forces.
In the past few months several other weapon caches and terror cells have been discovered in Judea and Samaria, not including improvised weapons such as knives or Molotov cocktails, which are confiscated on a near-daily basis.
M-16 rifle confiscated by IDF forces yesterday near Nablus
Ammunition for the weapons, captured during an IDF operation yesterday
Uzi rifle confiscated by security forces near Nablus yesterday
Confiscated ammunition and rifle
ϟ Its All About the Benjamins - PLO Corruption Dates Back to 1964
The head of the PA anti-corruption commission says financial corruption in the PLO dates back to its inception.
Its All About the Benjamins
The Palestinian Authority anti-corruption commission announced Monday it was seeking to restore plundered public funds hidden abroad by PA officials.
Rafiq al-Natsheh told the PA affiliatedMa’an News Agency that the commission is chasing corruption suspects living outside PA enclaves pending an agreement with their countries of residence.
Natsheh’s remarks follow a report in the Jordanian newspaper al-Dustourlast week that PA officials were moving deposits from Jordanian banks to foreign accounts.
“If suspects accused of stealing public money (are moving funds abroad), that falls within our jurisdiction,” al Natsheh said.
“We will ask these countries to help us restore the stolen public money,” he said, adding he had faced no problems in recovering funds moved to foreign or Israeli banks.
“Transferring money anywhere (abroad) will not prevent us from calling suspects to account and restoring that money,” the anti-corruption head said.
The history of the Palestinian Authority – only eighteen years in length – has been noted for extensive corruption from the outset.
PA officials have long sought to recover some $1 billion in pilfered funds from Suha Arafat, the widow of Fatah’s iconic arch-terrorist and PA founder Yasser Arafat.
So widespread was corruption under Arafat that in 1997 he ordered all further corruption reports kept secret.
His successor, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has also been accused of fostering widespread corruption, but has not been targeted in the current anti-corruption probe. This despite numerous reports in recent years of PA funds in Amman and Cairo being plundered by Abbas.
However, in rare comments on the location of assets belonging to the PLO, al-Natsheh admitted that bank deposits and real estate collected by the PLO dating all the way back to its inception in 1964 had been entrusted to “trustworthy individuals” had yet to be recovered.
ϟ Confirmed: Palestinians used illegal phosphorus shells
2 mortar shells from Gaza contained phosphorous
Two mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip into the rural Eshkol Regional Council on Sunday morning contained phosphorous, security forces confirmed. The shells landed in open fields, causing no injuries or damage.
Mortars containing phosphorous fired from Gaza have landed in Israeli territory in the past. Phosphorous is designed to ignite a fire around the impact zone. The chemical is banned by international law for use near civilians.
The mortar attack follows an Israeli air strike on Palestinian terrorists attempting to fire rockets into Israel on Friday. The IDF confirmed that the Israel Air Force killed one in the attack and and injured five. Palestinian sources identified the deceased as Muaman Abu Daf, commander of the al-Qaida-affiliated ‘Army of Islam.’
Earlier last week, terrorists fired five Kassam rockets into Israel, causing no damage or injuries. In response, the IAF struck targets in the Strip, confirming hits against a tunnel used by terrorists in northern Gaza and a known center for terrorist activity in the center of the Strip. Palestinians reported no injuries.
Speaking on the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead last Tuesday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said that Israel will “sooner or later” need to launch a large-scale operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
ϟ Israeli Druse singer banned from Ramallah
From JPost:
The Palestinian Authority banned a well-know Israeli Druse singer from appearing at a New Year’s Eve party in Ramallah.This is not a private institution that decides not to hire the singer - this is the Palestinian Authority stepping in to ban a singer, after he has already been hired, because he is Israeli!
The decision to ban Mike Sharif, known as “The Druse Boy,” was taken following strong protests and threats by many Palestinians who oppose “normalization” with Israelis.
Sharif was raised in a village in the North and is one of the popular singers not only among Israeli Arabs but throughout the Arab world. He started his career as a singer at the age of seven.
The Palestinians were angered by the fact that Sharif was presented as an Israeli and that some of his songs were in Hebrew. Some said it was unacceptable that Israeli songs would be sung in Ramallah on the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. Others said they didn’t like the fact that a member of the Druse community, whose sons serve in the IDF, would appear at a party in Ramallah.
PA policemen raided the hall where the party was supposed to take place and ordered the owners to cancel Sharif’s appearance, eyewitnesses said.
The organizers of the event were forced to replace the Druse singer with another performer.
Ramallah is looking a lot more like Gaza City lately, isn’t it?
(Source: elderofziyon.blogspot.com)
ϟ PA youth magazine that glorified Hitler now promotes elimination of Israel
Zayzafuna, a magazine for Palestinian youngsters, had its UNESCO funding pulled last month after it published an essay glorifying Hitler • This month, Zayzafuna publishes two full-color maps of “Palestine” with Israel completely eliminated • Also published is an essay praising legacy of Yasser Arafat.
A Palestinian Authority-funded magazine that just last week lost its UNESCO funding has, in its latest issue, published several maps that depict “Palestine” replacing all of Israel.
Zayzafuna, a magazine for Palestinian youngsters, is published monthly with the aid of the Palestinian Authority and, until recently, subsidies from the U.N. Last week, UNESCO, the education and cultural arm of the U.N., pulled its funds from the project after a deeply disturbing story came to light that glorified Hitler.
The December 2011 issue of Zayzafuna nevertheless continues to promote the elimination of Israel. Palestinian Media Watch reported on Wednesday that inside the issue are two full-color children’s drawings that show a Palestinian flag covering the Palestinian territories as well as all of Israel. The first drawing is accompanied by the numbers “194,” to represent the Palestinian bid to become the 194th member of the U.N., and the second image shows a dagger thrusting through the map. The images, PMW said on their website, are “a sign of Palestinian rule, political sovereignty and the elimination of Israel.”
(Source: israelhayom.com)
