Saudi Arabia reportedly denies entry visas to two Israeli ministers ahead of UNESCO conference

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September 7, 2023

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Saudi Arabia has reportedly denied entry to two Israeli ministers who were due to take part in a UNESCO conference in Riyadh next week, according to Israeli media.

The Israeli Channel 13 said on Monday evening that Saudi Arabia refused to grant visas to Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Education Minister Yoav Kisch.

The US and Israel have increasingly been pushing for a deal to normalise ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, but this has so far failed to materialise, as Riyadh sticks to its official position that it will only establish official relations with Tel Aviv if a Palestinian state is established.

Channel 13 reported that Israel had engaged in “great efforts” for the two ministers to be invited but Saudi Arabia had “put up obstacles” and did not issue them with visas.

It also said that the Israeli foreign ministry had pulled back from its efforts to get visas for the two ministers, following a US request.

As a result, Israeli professionals will take part in the Riyadh meeting but not Israeli ministers.

According to Channel 13, US officials told their Israeli counterparts that because of “progress in contacts” between Israel and Saudi Arabia, an invitation to Israeli ministers at this stage would put Saudi Arabia “in a complicated situation”.

“This is not the time, it is too early,” a US official reportedly said.

Saudi Arabia recently appointed an envoy to the Palestinian territories, in a move believed to be a preparation for normalisation of relations with Israel.

In 2020, three Arab states – the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco, normalised ties with Israel in a controversial deal known as the Abraham Accords.

Palestinians slammed the deals as a betrayal of their cause, pointing out that they rewarded Israel while it continued to occupy the West Bank, besiege the Gaza Strip, and prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

A Peace Process with the PLO that lasted less than three weeks.

By

David Bedein

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September 6, 2023

Yes, on September 13, 1993, at the White House, Israel signed the “Declaration of Principles” (the DOP) between Israel and the PLO, in the presence of US and Russian officials who also sat at the table on the White House lawn.

The agreement, hammered out in Oslo, stipulated mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO.

It required the PLO to cease and desist from terrorism, and for the PLO to nullify its covenant, which calls for Israel’s destruction.

The Israeli Knesset ratified the Oslo Accord by a vote of 61 to 50, with 9 abstentions, a week later. However, what received hardly any attention was the fact that on October 6, 1993, the PLO Fatah executive would not ratify the Oslo Accord, for lack of a quorum.

Pinchas Inbari, one of the only Israeli correspondentד covering the PLO in Tunis at the time, writing for the Israeli left-wing Hebrew newspaper Al HaMishmar, indeed broke the story of the PLO non-ratification of the “Declaration of Principles”.

The rest of the Israeli media, however, did not report that the PLO never ratified the accord, while the Israeli government acted as if the PLO had done so.

Inbari was scheduled to appear on a popular morning KOL YISRAEL radio show when he got back from Tunis.

However, Prime Minister Rabin personally called Israel state radio to cancel that appearance.

Instead, the Israel government dispatched then deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, Yossi Beilin, to fly to Tunis to thank Arafat for facilitating the ratification of the Oslo Accord, which Arafat and the PLO never ratified.

In the desire to falsely believe and hope that Arafat was genuinely trying to usher in an era of peace, the Israeli government and its compliant media chose to overlook the PLO’s significant failure to ratify the Oslo Accord..

It was a sign of things to come.

Dr. Michael Widlanski, a former New York Times reporter, uncovered the working record of duplicity of Arafat’s PA. Widlanski personally reviewed nearly a half a million documents contained in the computer discs, hard drives and file boxes that were seized by the Israeli government when then Israeli minister of Public security Uzi Landau in 2002 ordered the closure of Orient House, which was the quasi-official seat of the PA in Jerusalem.

As Widlanski, who sent me a number of copies of the documents in Arabic, said “The documents repeatedly showed that Arafat was in day to day control of the details of the Palestinian Authority’s military operations…They showed irrefutably that he controlled Fatah’s tanzeem militia, [and other terror organizations] not that they controlled him.”

The documents showed that Arafat’s proxies, such as Faisal-Al-Husseini, relayed requests for approval of expenditures to Arafat himself. For example, among the captured documents were reports addressed to Faisal-Al-Husseini, from a joint field committee of Palestinian Arab organizations detailing terrorist operations carried out in Jerusalem, along with a budget request to cover operational costs for the coming month.

“After Al-Husseini initiated this document, he wrote a separate letter to Arafat relaying the request and recommending he approve the expenditure,” Widlanski said.

To view the article that Widlanski wrote at the time detailing his “finds” see here.

The documents from the Orient House that were stored in a police warehouse in Beit Shemesh provide insight into the workings of the Palestinian Authority secret police in Jerusalem and the involvement of the PA in all areas of organized crime – drugs, prostitution, arms smuggling, and car thefts.

Two police officials asked me at the time if I could find private funds to translate these documents. However, the police officials later informed me hat a decision was made to not disclose these documents to the public.

I asked the Member of the Knesset (at the time) who was chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, MK Tzachi Hanegbi, as to why the decision was made to not allow for a professional review of the PLO documents seized at the PLO headquarters in Jerusalem, which were then in police custody, HaNegbi said that the answer to that question is “classified”.

Hanegbi today heads the Israel National Security Council (NSC) , which coordinates, designs and plans Israeli national security policy

Meanwhile, a flood at the Israel Police headquarters in Beit Shemesh destroyed the PLO Orient House documents that would have shed light on Arafat’s true intentions.

In its desire to plant the false belied that Arafat was genuinely trying to usher in an era of peace, the Israeli government and media chose to overlook this significant and crucial failure.

Very few people know or remember that Pinchas Inbari, a left wing Israeli journalist indeed broke the story that Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization DID NOT RATIFY the Oslo Accords after Arafat signed them.

Inbari today is a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Full disclosure: For more than 30 years, I rely upon the integrity of Inbari at the news and research agency,

After reading Inbari’s headline story at the time in Al Hamishmar I opined that that Arafat may go down in history as the new Woodrow Wilson, after he witnessed his own legislative body reject the peace accord that Arafat had promoted – or at least made a pretense of promoting.

Except that the Israel media shielded anyone from knowing that that the peace process with PLO lasted less than three weeks..

Senator Risch is holding up US funding for UNRWA? Kudos to him!

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September 4, 2023

Can there be a difference between one’s obligations and one’s actions? Well, we all are supposed to be good citizens — but somehow, the jails are full, so the answer to that question is therefore a clear “yes.”

But not to one Khaled Elgindy, a “senior fellow and director of the Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute.” Writing in The Hill, he lambasts the Biden administration for not releasing an additional $75 million earmarked for UNRWA over an objection by Idaho Senator James Risch. “Risch has said that he will not release the funds until he receives assurances from the Biden administration that UNRWA is not aiding Palestinian militants or promoting antisemitism. However, these and other conditions are already requirements UNRWA must abide by in its framework agreement with the State Department.”

Clearly, Mr. Elgindy implies that the fact that there are “requirements UNRWA must abide by” means that UNRWA abides by those requirements. Yet, if the two are one and the same, it is odd that he does not suggest an easy solution — that the administration issues the desired assurances to Senator Risch, and moves on with the release of funds. Instead, Mr. Elgindy proposes that President Biden should ignore Senator Risch’s hold, and hands over the money anyway: “To be clear, the senator’s ability to put a “hold” on the funds has no legal authority but rather is a courtesy extended by the executive branch to the legislative branch. … the Biden administration could simply ignore the hold if it chose to do so.”

So why won’t the administration do it? And why would Mr. Elgindy suggest violating the balance of power between branches of government, and the accepted protocols, when a simple letter of assurance would produce the exact result he desires?

Perhaps because both the administration, and Mr. Elgindy know full well that such an assurance would be a lie. That UNRWA employs members of Hamas — an organization that is openly dedicated to the destruction of Israel — is not even a secret. “Professor Rashid Khalidi, a noted Hamas apologist at Columbia University, explains that UNRWA employs, ‘members of different political groups such as… Hamas and Islamic Jihad, without reference to their belonging to a specific group’” was on top of my google search for “does UNRWA employ members of Hamas?” Nor are the textbooks used in UNRWA schools free from antisemitism. On the contrary, according to the recent examination of their contents, “UNRWA-produced educational literature ‘contains material that encourages jihad, violence and martyrdom, promotes antisemitism, and promotes hate, intolerance, and lack of neutrality.’”

While he clearly understands what UNRWA is, and whom it supports, Mr. Elgindy pretends that some nefarious politics is at work here; in fact, his screed is titled “Stop playing politics with Palestinian lives” But, it seems to me, it is Mr. Elgindy who tries to play politics with lives — Israeli lives, that is, by demanding release of US funding to UNRWA despite its support for Palestinian terrorism.

It is perhaps not surprising that Mr. Elgindy, a Palestinian apologist, would do so, but it is rather a shock that The Hill would support him in this mission. And it is surprising too that Senator Risch would be the only member of the senate to bring to light the glaring inappropriateness of American support for UNRWA that is a primary source of Palestinian intransigence — and should have been defunded and dismantled years ago.

While it is gratifying that the Biden administration won’t paper over a lie that UNRWA does not support terrorism — or that even Mr. Elgindy won’t demand it, it is sad that the fact that UNRWA is an obstacle to peace is not being broadcast far and wide, but is merely whispered in the corridors of power.

Unveiling The Unratified: The Swift Demise Of The PLO-Israel Peace Endeavor

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David Bedein

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September 1, 2023

As the world reminisces about the 30th anniversary of the Oslo Peace Process, an exploration into the less-talked-about aspects of the initiative reveals a story that diverges from conventional narratives.

Three decades ago, on September 13, 1993, the White House witnessed a historic moment as Israel and the PLO signed the “Declaration of Principles” (DOP) in the presence of US and Russian officials. This landmark agreement, meticulously crafted in Oslo, sought to establish mutual recognition between the two parties, while requiring the PLO to renounce terrorism and nullify its call for Israel’s destruction.

A week later, the Israeli Knesset approved the accord with a vote of 61 to 50, with 9 abstentions. However, what remains largely obscured from public awareness is the subsequent failure of the PLO Fatah executive to ratify the Oslo agreement on October 6, 1993. This lack of ratification was initially reported by Pinchas Inbari, an Israeli correspondent based in Tunis, who wrote for the left-wing newspaper Al HaMishmar.

The media’s response to this revelation was a stark contrast. The Israeli government and compliant media chose to disregard the PLO’s non-ratification, preferring to believe in the potential for genuine peace. The narrative took shape, painting a picture of hope and reconciliation while overlooking a significant failure.

This incident foreshadowed the years to come. Dr. Michael Widlanski’s meticulous investigation exposed the duplicity of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA). In 2002, nearly half a million documents were seized from the Orient House, the quasi-official seat of the PA in Jerusalem. These documents portrayed Arafat’s day-to-day control over the Palestinian authority’s military operations, contrary to the common belief that he was influenced by terror organizations.

Widlanski’s findings highlighted Arafat’s direct involvement in Fatah’s tanzeem militia and other terror-related activities. The documents even illustrated the process by which Arafat’s proxies requested his approval for expenditures related to terror operations and other illicit activities.

The documents that could have unveiled Arafat’s true intentions, which included involvement in organized crime and illicit dealings, were stored in a police warehouse in Beit Shemesh. A request for private funding to translate these documents was made, but the decision to keep them from public scrutiny was eventually made. When questioned, the reasoning behind this choice was marked as classified by Tzachi HaNegbi, who today leads the Israel National Security Council.

In the midst of all this, a flood at the Israel Police headquarters in Beit Shemesh resulted in the destruction of these revealing documents. The Israeli government’s commitment to portraying Arafat as a harbinger of peace overshadowed this loss, further shaping a narrative that diverged from reality.

In the annals of history, Pinchas Inbari remains one of the few who remember and bring to light the untold story. As a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, he continues to emphasize the overlooked aspect of the Oslo Accords.

In the shadow of nostalgia, it is essential to reevaluate history, considering the unratified accord that shattered the initial hopes of a lasting peace. The PLO-Israel Peace Process, often celebrated for its potential, was marred by the stark reality that it lasted less than three weeks.

Conditional Friendships

By

Michael Kuttner

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September 1, 2023

One can always discern when a potential friendship is really a conditional one.

The clue is when the word ‘IF’ is always attached to some kind of substantial condition.

Currently, there is fevered speculation swirling around the possibility of Saudi Arabia coming in from the cold and openly acknowledging something that has been clearly evident for the last seventy-five years. Jewish sovereignty has been re-established, but three-quarters of a century later, there are still some Arab and Islamic nations which refuse to acknowledge this fact. They prefer to deny reality and prefer instead to either work to eliminate Israel or attach so many “ifs” to any recognition, thus making any sort of friendship unattainable.

A true and genuine friendship should be based on mutual respect, free of unilateral demands and not be conditioned by capitulation to lies.

If one listens to the pronouncements currently emanating from the US State Department and other interested parties, it is abundantly clear that what is being envisaged as far as Saudi/Israel relations are concerned will be yet another mirage in the desert.

It is imperative to ask right from the beginning why Israel is the one and only country in the world that is expected to beg for recognition and, in the process, be bullied into accepting humiliating conditions for the privilege.

Why do our politicians and diplomats remain mute while erstwhile so-called friends help peddle the most outrageous demands on behalf of those who ostensibly want to be our friends?

Why is there a cone of silence over the hypocritical stance and blatantly false claims peddled by some countries that have established “cool” relationships with Israel?

It is claimed that achieving recognition by Saudi Arabia will result in an avalanche of similar gestures from Arab and Islamic nations, which presently shun and hate Israel.

Wishful thinking seems more likely, especially as current trends point more in the direction of chaos and knee-jerk rejectionist reactions.

Thanks to the vacillating vacuum that characterizes the Biden Administration’s policies, Saudi Arabia has now jumped into bed with its supposedly arch-enemy, Iran. What this means is that the Mullah regime, which is dedicated to the destruction of the “Zionist entity”, is now a partner with Saudi Arabia. Taking this fact into consideration and the malign influence other doubtful allies such as China and Russia may have on the Gulf area, the frenetic euphoria generated by all and sundry concerning recognition of Israel would seem to be a hallucination of the highest order.

There is no way that Saudi Arabia will ditch 75 years of hostility and non-recognition of Jewish sovereignty while it is clasped in the embrace of a regime that sponsors terror and exports violence to surrogate agents in other countries. The only way that this could change is in the unlikely assertion of a US-led challenge to Iranian hegemony and regime change.

Taking these realities into account, it is delusional to believe that a Saudi embrace of Israel is imminent or even remotely feasible.

From the heavy-handed hints emanating via the media and State Department, Israel, as part of any so-called deal will be expected to make major gestures to the corrupt PA/PLO/Hamas kleptocracies waiting in the wings to proclaim a Palestinian State.

In the words of Mr. Blinken, “a Saudi deal will require major Israeli concessions.”

To put this into perspective and plain language, what Israel’s so-called existing friends are demanding is that in order for Israel to be recognized and accepted as a legitimate country, it must first of all reward those who, for more than seven decades, have failed to destroy it. This is eerily reminiscent of the disastrous Oslo Accords, whereby Arafat and his murderous gangsters were allowed to return and establish a terrorist entity in Judea and Samaria. At that time, all our hallucinatory leftists and international “experts” predicted the dawn of an age of peace and fraternal love. Well, we all know now what a calamity this series of concessions brought in its wake.

A perfect example of conditional friendship can be seen in the relationship between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It has produced a “cold” peace, just short of freezing, where acceptance of Israel has not percolated down to citizens because of officially sanctioned condemnations of almost everything that Israel does. As a condition for continued “recognition”, Jordan demands that Israel sanctifies the Kingdom as the eternal guardian of Islamic and Christian holy sites. In addition, it propagates each and every outrageous claim about Jerusalem trotted out by the fake Palestinians.

Friendship with Egypt is on a slightly warmer level, but here also, the concept of accepting Israel as a legitimate part of the international community has not seeped down to the masses.

In contrast, the relationship between Israel and the Gulf States and Morocco is much more normal because the leaders of those nations openly and demonstrably set an example of openness and tolerance.

Herein lies the reason why there is still a long way to go for others in the Arab and Islamic world to make a move towards normalizing relationships with Israel.

As long as there is a dread of being “outed” for even having a dialogue, there can be no chance of progress. Just look at the uproar that has ensued as a result of Libya’s Foreign Minister actually speaking to Israel’s Foreign Minister. It is this sort of irrational insanity that characterizes Islamic jihadist behaviour.

This is what drives Iranian rejection of Israel’s right to exist.

If Saudi Arabia genuinely wants to establish friendly relationships with the Jewish State, it needs to unshackle itself from the malignant stranglehold exerted by the world’s leading abuser of human rights and sponsor of terror.

It also needs to come out of the closet and openly declare that friendship and recognition cannot be held hostage to the fanatical fantasies of the PLO, PA, Hamas and other assorted groups.

Nobody expects complete agreement on each and every aspect of political policy, but the least one should strive for is a relationship that is honest and open to truthful dialogue.

It also means that others butt out and refrain from inserting demands which will only doom any sort of rapprochement.

Demanding that Israel accede to measures that will harm its security and reward those who murder its citizens is totally unacceptable. Our politicians and diplomats should make this crystal clear at every opportunity. Remaining mute in the hope that Washington and the UN won’t be upset is a stance that has failed more than once in the past.

Why must the world’s only Jewish State beg for recognition and then be forced to humiliate itself in the process?

Finally, anyone who thinks that if Saudi Arabia was ever to recognize Israel, all the other rejectionist Islamic nations would follow, needs to take a reality check.

Many people who hate Jews try to excuse their prejudices by claiming that some of their best friends are Jews.

When it comes to Israel, there are some who say they would love us, but only if we conform to their preconceived prejudices.

Our response should be clear and unambiguous – thanks but no thanks.

Palestinian terrorists open fire on Arab school using Israeli curriculum

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September 1, 2023

In a letter that was reportedly left at the site, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed “militia” of P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction, claimed responsibility for the shooting.

“We will cripple with an iron first anyone who helps establish the school,” wrote the U.S.-designated terrorist group, claiming that the Israeli curriculum “falsifies and targets the ancient and contemporary history of Palestine.”

The targeted school is one of four new educational institutions in Kafr Aqab that are funded by the Jerusalem Municipality and will prepare students for an Israeli bagrut (high school matriculation) diploma. The school was supposed to open later this week.

Of roughly 110,000 Arab students in eastern Jerusalem, 85% follow the Palestinian Authority curriculum, Lech Yerushalayim, a non-governmental organization that focuses on Jerusalem-related issues, told the Tazpit Press Service in February.

“The Palestinian Authority, which is frankly the enemy of Israel, pushes the Palestinian narrative. Israel tries to fight this through a type of censorship, but it’s not succeeding within the schools,” Lech Yerushalayim Chairman Maor Tzemach said at the time.

Kafr Aqab is within the Israel capital’s municipal boundaries on the northern edge. However, it is situated outside the security barrier and security forces rarely enter the neighbourhood. Most of Kafr Aqab’s residents have Israeli residency status, allowing free movement within the country and access to Israeli social benefits.

An estimated 150,000 Palestinians with Israeli residency permits are believed to live in areas of municipal Jerusalem beyond the security barrier.

Behind the scene with David Bedein – August 29, 2023

By

David Bedein

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August 30, 2023

Jack Lew’s Links to China Questioned

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August 29, 2023

Jack Lew, President Joe Biden’s top candidate for ambassador to Israel, hosted Chinese Communist Party officials as chairman of the board of directors at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

On its website, the organization says it is a nonprofit educational organization that “promotes understanding and cooperation between the United States and Greater China in the belief that sound and productive Sino-American relations serve vital American and world interests.”

The Washington Free Beacon pointed out that as chairman, Lew has hosted top CCP officials and met in Beijing with China’s foreign minister, who during their meeting blamed the United States for creating the “root causes” of tension in the United States-China relationship.

Lew’s views on United States-China relations could impact his Israel ambassadorship, the Free Beacon observed. The United States is increasingly competing for influence with China around the world, including in the Middle East.

“Individuals with strong links to China, including through organizations like the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations or Asia Society, should have no place in U.S. politics,” said Anders Corr, an intelligence analyst and publisher of the Journal of Political Risk.

Leaders from the organization often appear on Chinese state television to criticize American foreign policy toward China, while largely ignoring Beijing’s aggression.

During a meeting on June 26 with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, Lew stated that the United States and China are interdependent and that the economic “decoupling” of the two countries would fail. Lew’s remarks came after Wang blamed the United States for the “root causes” of tensions with China. Wang called on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations to “continue to stabilize the China-U.S. relationship from deterioration, advance friendly exchanges, and disseminate true stories of mutually beneficial cooperation.”

Lew served as secretary of the treasury under President Barack Obama. Lew previously served as White House chief of staff.

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the White House did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon’s requests for comment.

Away with the fairies

By

Michael Kuttner

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August 25, 2023

Originating from Scottish or Irish/Gaelic myths this expression has nowadays come to signify someone who refuses to face reality and lives in a dream world.

This malady has become so pervasive especially when it involves anything to do with Israel that one can easily say it is now an endemic condition afflicting some sectors of society.

Those who harbour an almost genetic aversion to the Jewish State and Zionists are particularly prone to catching this virus. However, interestingly, it also makes its presence felt among otherwise sensible and level headed individuals. While displaying perfectly rational thinking about any other subject when it comes to Israel for some inexplicable reason all logic and rationality tend to disappear.

Political orientation is irrelevant although it does seem to infect more people on the left of the political spectrum.

All this came to mind after I read the speech given recently to the Australian Labor Party conference by a former trade union official. Described in the report as an ALP “luminary,” Michael Easson tried to explain why “a true friend of Israel is a friend of the Palestinian People.” His impassioned speech contained so many inaccuracies and assertions beloved by progressive leftists that it would be remiss to ignore them.

In the politically correct environment which smothers all factual realities, those who should be forcefully countering the lies the loudest are remarkably silent or at best reduced to muted mumbling. This reticence has inevitably led to the big lies becoming part and parcel of leftist ideologies which in turn has morphed into holy writ as promulgated by the corrupt United Nations and its ancillary bodies.

This media described “luminary” launched off by stating that “the central and tragic truth of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is that two peoples, the Jewish People and the Palestinians, have deep, centuries long historical ties to a territory no larger than half of Tasmania.”

Well, at least he got one fact correct and that is the size of the country.

The rest is total fantasy. The fake Palestinians were only invented after 1967 and prior to that they were proud to call themselves Arabs who looked on Palestine as part of Syria or Jordan. Their so called long historical ties are a figment of recent revisionist dogmas. As for the Jews their historical ties go back much further than centuries. Obviously his knowledge of Jewish sovereignty does not stretch back several millennia. Therein resides the clue as to why and how dedicated leftists are able to spout such nonsensical claims.

It gets better however as his speech progresses.

“Both peoples want their political independence and to live in peace and freedom.”

Anything more detached from reality would be difficult to find. At no stage in the past and certainly not currently was there a burning desire by the local Arabs to live in peace and freedom. If indeed this yearning was a fact why did the Arab representatives reject the 1947 partition plan and indeed all subsequent peace proposals? The answer of course is simple but seems to have eluded the proponents of this fiction. The primary, and indeed sole aim, was and still is to eliminate any sort of Jewish independence.

Why was it that between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan illegally occupied Judea, Samaria and half of Jerusalem that the fictitious desire for independence was not realized? The answer of course is that rather than establishing a country for those who didn’t yet exist as a Palestinian people the primary aim was to destroy the Jewish nation. Why did the Arabs accept Jordanian citizenship? Very simply, they did so because the cause of so called Palestinian independence was irrelevant to them.

The imaginary desire to live in peace and freedom is yet another mirage.

First of all freedom as we know it in democracies is non existent in the Arab world. Secondly, from the massacres of Jews in 1929 until the very present day the agenda to destroy, maim and murder Jews is the primary ambition of those who now call themselves “Palestinians.” I am writing these lines on the day that a Jewish kindergarten teacher was shot and murdered in front of her daughter as she was riding in a car. Praising her murder are Fatah and Hamas. The former is the ruling party in the PA whose patron saint is Abbas and the latter group is another murderous outfit which Abbas seeks to amalgamate with.

Do any of those spouting inanities about peace and freedom actually know what goes on in this part of the world? Are they aware of the daily outpouring of hate and incitement against Jews? Why do they support the funding of the PA and UNRWA? The PA rewards murderers of Jews and UNRWA schools are breeding grounds for the next generation of murderers.

The Labor Party speaker extolled the democratic values of Israel. He then expressed the hope that in the future Palestinians would also be able to enjoy such rights in their independent state. What sort of cloud cuckoo universe does he live in? It is this mass hallucinatory lunacy which prevails and which we ignore at our peril.

The final declaration of his speech was “terrorism must be condemned and more must be done by Hamas, the PLO and Israel to affirm this position.”

There you have it in a nutshell.

The equivalence between Hamas and PLO/PA sanctioned terror and the isolated acts of Israelis. Our fictional peace partners see murdering Jews as a holy objective while Israeli authorities and the overwhelming number of Israelis condemn vigilante acts. However, this fact is deliberately ignored by the media and our own self loathers. This moral balancing act so beloved of the international community is repugnant and disgusting.

The lie that Israel’s fight against terror is on the same level as that of the PA, Fatah and Hamas is swallowed entirely as can be seen from the rhetoric employed by the anti Israel brigade and promoted by no doubt well meaning but totally naïve and ignorant advocates.

The specious claims made by this Australian “luminary” to an audience of the ill informed left resulted in very little illumination and only resulted in the real situation being buried in a deep dark hole of preconceived prejudices.

Confirming that internationally sanctioned hypocrisy is alive and well and that politicians still believe they can confuse and hoodwink their constituents is the statement by Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong. She is quoted as declaring “describing half of Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory does NOT prejudge final status issues including the final status of Jerusalem. Australia has returned to a more centrist position.”

Who are you trying to fool Ms. Wong?

Jerusalem has never been the capital of any fake Arab Palestinian country. Its status as the capital of a Jewish sovereign State is uncontestable whether the UN likes it or not. By rejoining the immoral majority Australia is not moving to a centrist position. It is reaffirming an historically fraudulent and revisionist version of the facts.

Pandering to the prejudiced masses may gain you brownie points but it won’t alter the determination of most informed and committed Jews to celebrate a restored presence in the Land of their Biblical ancestors.

There is a choice to be made.

A true friend of Israel cannot at the same time embrace the murderous ideology driving those who declare themselves “Palestinians” and follow jihadist terror.

To do so, is without doubt being away with the fairies.

The Israeli City of Haifa in Palestinian Authority Textbooks and Teachers’ Guides Used in UNRWA Schools

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August 25, 2023

The PA textbooks taught in UNRWA schools (grades 1-10) in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip present the city of Haifa, which is located within Israel’s pre-1967 territories, as a Palestinian city:

In the following assignment the student is required to put the name of a city – the Israeli city of Haifa in this case – in a given sentence: “3. The city of …[Haifa]… is one of the Palestinian coastal cities.” (National and Life Education, Grade 2, Part 1 (2019) p. 81)

Another book features a text in which a teacher asks the students to do research on Palestinian cities, and one of the students says that she will ask her grandmother to tell her about the city of Haifa. In that same book a question reads: “We will mention the names of the Palestinian cities that appeared in the text [Gaza, Hebron, Jericho – and Haifa]” (Our Beautiful Language, Grade 2, Part 1 (2020) pp. 118, 119, respectively). Haifa also appears among the Palestinian cities in another assignment (Mathematics, Grade 2, Part 1 (2020) p. 42)

The Palestinian city of Haifa was occupied in 1948, its Arab residents have left it and yearn to come back:

“-When was the city of Haifa occupied? -Mention some Palestinian cities that were occupied in 1948.” (Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language – Academic Path, Grade 10 (2018) p. 64)

And in response to a question about Palestinian cities that were “occupied by the enemy” in that same year: “3. Haifa, Jaffa, Ashkelon, Acre.” (Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language, Grade 8 (2018) p. 212)

“The teacher will tell a short story about our homeland Palestine: ‘My grandfather used to live in a nice village in [the vicinity of] Haifa. He worked in agriculture, loved the land and guarded it. On one sad day foreign faces came in order to drive my grandfather out of his land, burn the crop and force him to emigrate to distant lands’.” (Teacher’s Guide, Our Beautiful Language, Grade 2 (2018) p. 124)

A story titled “A homeland that resides within us”: “Yasser and his sister Abir agreed to participate in a journalistic writing contest by writing an essay about Palestine. Abir: ‘What will we write in the essay?’ Yasser: ‘We will write about the homeland that resides within us [while] we do not reside there.’ Abir: ‘And how would we write about a homeland that we cannot reach?’ Yasser: ‘We will ask grandfather and grandmother and [other] elderly people about Acre, Haifa, Jaffa, Safed and other places.’ Abir: ‘And we will not forget to express our dream and right to return to our homeland and live there’.” (Our Beautiful Language, Grade 2, Part 2 (2020) p. 8)

One of the sentences within an exercise following that story: “Yasser’s grandfather was living in the city of Haifa.” (Our Beautiful Language, Grade 2, Part 2 (2020) p. 9)

The Palestinian city of Haifa must be liberated:

“B. Haifa awaits its liberation.” (Teacher’s Guide, Our Beautiful Language, Grade 4 (2018) p. 204)

The supposed liberators are the youths of the Palestinian Al-Fatah organization, as said in the following hymn of the organization’s youth movement: “I am a lion cub; I am a flower; we gave [our] soul to the revolution Our forefathers built for us houses in our free country [in the future] I am a lion cub; I am a flower; we carried the revolution’s ember To Haifa, to Jaffa, to Al-Aqsa [Mosque], to the [Dome of the] Rock”

(Our Beautiful Language, Grade 2, Part 1 (2020) p. 44)

The notion of the return of the refugees’ descendants to Haifa while it is still under Israeli rule is presented as sheer lunacy, which makes us understand that it should take place after the elimination of Israel:

In a story appearing in a tenth grade Arabic Language textbook, the hero is arrested and sent back from Haifa to the West Bank by the Israeli police following his attempt to visit his father’s house in the city years after the latter’s departure in 1948. The ending sentence in the story, in which the hero agrees with the policemen who call him ‘crazy’, is the subject of the following question and answer in the corresponding teacher’s guide: “6. Why did the writer describe himself as crazy at the end of the story? -Because the one, who is expelled from his homeland and is later content to return to it as a guest with the robbers who had seized it, is really crazy.” (Teacher’s Guide, Arabic Language – Academic Path, Grade 10 (2018) p. 199)

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