Yaakov and Lahav discuss all the deals that are concerning Israel right now, from the teachers union striking and concerns that the will not reach an agreement with the Education Ministry before September 1, to the impending signing of the new JCPOA between the US and Iran.
Then, they are joined by Noam Bedein, CEO of Middle East Ecotourism to discuss the Dead Sea and the good news that good come out of a dried-out situation.
Eighty-one years after the Mufti of Jerusalem visited Hitler and asked him to kill all the Jews, Mahmoud Abbas, his current successor as leader of the Palestinian cause, arrived in Berlin.
At a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Abbas refused to apologize for the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes and falsely claimed that Israel had carried out “50 holocausts” against Arab Muslims.
Scholz, Merkel’s successor, said nothing at the joint press conference, but later tepidly condemned the remarks. “I am disgusted by the outrageous remarks made by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,” he tweeted. Why should he be? This is who Abbas is.
After an Arab Muslim recently opened fire at a bus stop and shot a number of Israelis and American tourists, including a pregnant woman who was hit in the stomach, Abbas’s Fatah celebrated the attack, posting on Facebook, “Praise to the rifle muzzles.”
In 1929, years before Hitler took power, the Hebron massacre by the Muslim settler population brutally killed the local Jewish men, women and children, mutilated their bodies and scattered limbs and organs. Every year, the Palestinian Authority honors three of the killers as “martyrs.” One of the PA’s martyrs, Muhammad Jamjoum, confessed to murdering five Jews. Another, Ataa al-Zir, murdered three innocent people back when Hitler could only dream of killing Jews.
The Palestinian cause is the modern standard bearer of the Nazis. The terrorist group whose representative was invited to Berlin has killed more Jews than anyone since the Nazis. And has spent more time lying about it than any ordinary Holocaust denier in Germany.
Abbas earned his doctorate for his Holocaust denial thesis from the USSR’s Patrice Lumumba University, created to train third-world assets for a Communist war on free nations. The KGB reportedly recruited the “Palestinian” terrorist leader, gave him the code name “mole” and put him to work under the man who now serves as Putin’s special representative in the region.
When Abbas wasn’t working for the Communists, he was being inspired by the Nazis. Edy Cohen, an Israeli researcher who wrote a book on Hitler’s Mufti, warned that Abbas’s Holocaust denial thesis was “inspired by and based on the work of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust.” Abbas and Eichmann had both made killing Jews and lying about it their life’s work.
Thirty-one years after the visit by Hitler’s Mufti, Abbas and the Palestinians made their grand bid to replace the Nazis with the Munich Massacre of Israeli Jewish athletes.
The Munich Olympics were meant to show off the new Germany. And they did. German authorities had refused to provide security because it would clash with the country’s image makeover, and so the Muslim terrorists were able to freely operate in the Olympic Village.
The unarmed Israeli coaches and athletes fought the eight armed Muslim terrorists for their lives. Some were killed outright, one was castrated, while others were taken hostage. Germany rejected Israeli pleas to allow them to send a hostage rescue team. Shortly after the massacre was over, it began secret negotiations with the terrorists to cut a deal to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization.
After the massacre, the bodies of deceased terrorists were sent back and buried with full honors. Those terrorists who were arrested were shortly afterward released. The Olympics initially refused to even postpone the games and made no reference to the massacre. It took over 40 years for the Olympics to officially commemorate the dead athletes and coaches.
Abbas was one of the senior officials who planned the massacre and provided the money to carry it out. Scholz decided to hold a joint press conference with a Holocaust denier responsible for the worst post-Holocaust massacre of Jews on German soil. Was he really surprised or disgusted? And will there be any consequences?
As Stephen M. Flatow, an American father whose daughter Alisa was brutally murdered in a bus bombing in Israel, wrote in a recent editorial, “Germany sent the Palestinian Arabs $199 million last year.”
“Let’s not lose sight of the incredible hypocrisy of governments that shed crocodile tears over the Munich massacre, and then send hundreds of millions of dollars to a man who helped perpetrate it,” he writes.
The German representative in Ramallah repeatedly boasts of all the money flowing from Berlin. None of that money will stop. No diplomatic relations will be cut.
In the past few months, Abbas has met with President Joe Biden, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Romania’s Klaus Iohannis – the Islamic terrorist leader was decorated with the “Star of Romania.”
The only country to turn down a visit by Abbas was the Saudi kingdom.
When Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, often accused of antisemitism by the Left, visited Israel in 2018, he “broke protocol” by not scheduling a visit with Abbas. That was a rare exception to the world leaders who have hugged and shaken hands with the terrorist boss.
Biden, Putin and Xi Jinping have all paid tribute to Abbas and to the notion that Israel’s existence on its own land represents some sort of “occupation,” when the only occupation is the one carried on by the Arab Muslim colonists who terrorize Israel’s indigenous Jewish population.
Despite clamoring about the occupation, Abbas promised Xi Jinping to stand with China in its occupation of Hong Kong and the repression of fellow Muslims in Xinjiang. He endorsed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Not surprising for a dictator who was last elected in 2005.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, an imaginary place that never existed and still doesn’t, claims to represent an equally imaginary Palestinian people. Whom does he actually represent? A poll of the Arab Muslim settlers living in the terrorist-occupied territories in Israel earlier this year revealed that 73% want Abbas to resign and that he would lose any election. So there isn’t going to be an election and the big lie of “Palestine” will keep on going.
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Abbas is a terrorist who doesn’t represent anyone except his armed minions and state sponsors. A “Palestinian” state is as historically legitimate as Islamic State, and its leader is as legitimately in office as was Adolf Hitler. The only thing that the murderous leadership of a fictional terror state have ever given the world is international terrorism.
Despite these indisputable facts, Scholz chose to welcome Abbas. And the rest of the world’s leaders will go on welcoming the Holocaust denier and former KGB agent the way that Berlin once welcomed Hitler’s Mufti. What was once the ugliness of the Nazi regime has become the multinational human rights consensus of the international community.
The Mufti of Jerusalem and Mahmoud Abbas have a simple message. Hitler invited the Mufti of Jerusalem because he agreed with his call to kill the Jews. World leaders continue to invite Abbas over because they agree with his message.
It would be undiplomatic of them to say so. They invite him to say it for them instead.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs on Thursday presented President Isaac Herzog with a treatise on threats posed to Israel.
“The latest Israeli clashes in the Gaza Strip with Palestinian terror organizations have created an impression that with changes in the nature of warfare, the military threat to Israel has entirely changed,” President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Dore Gold said at the event. “There has been a school of thought that has arisen which has downgraded the importance of land warfare and instead stressed the centrality of airpower in deciding the outcome of wars. Along with their focus on airpower, some analysts have ceased to look at how topography, terrain, and strategic depth can influence how wars are terminated.”
The treatise – Preserving Israel’s Doctrine of Defensible Borders – is a major security and public diplomacy initiative that analyzes the threats posed to Israel by terrorism, as well as Israel’s current territorial requirements, with special emphasis on the West Bank, which is strategically vital for Israel to retain if it is to fulfill its existing security and defense needs.
The work on the book began in a joint conference with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in 2004 and was presented to the US Congress and published in the framework of a special 2006 session of the Herzliya Conference.
The core research – first updated in 2014 – offered a comprehensive assessment of Israel’s critical security requirements, particularly the need for defensible borders based on UN Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and confirmed by past US governments.
The latest update – carried out in 2020 by Gold and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser in the wake of military operations and new threats from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran – highlights the vital importance of Israeli control of the aerial and ground dimensions of the West Bank, and the risks entailed for Israel by the stationing of an international force as a lesson from recent history.
“It was important to define defensible borders in the Israeli context as such borders that allow Israel to effectively defend itself by itself, at any time, against all potential military threats from near and far, including those emanating from within the territory Israel controls. It means that all the resources necessary to achieve Israel’s defense requirements are within its borders and under its security responsibility, especially since the Palestinians refuse to accept Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people,” Kuperwasser said.
The Ministry of Defense, building off a ISA (Shabak) May 2021 press release, explained that these NGOs diverted humanitarian funds from European donors to the PFLP and recruited members into the terror group. Relatedly, a security official told Israel’s N12 news site on October 23, 2021 that these NGOs provided a funding “lifeline” for the PFLP, employed PFLP terrorists, and that PFLP terror operatives used NGO offices for meetings.
On August 17, 2022, Israeli Minister of Defense Benny Gantz announced that the appeals of Addameer, Bisan, and UPWC were rejected, and he had finalized the designations. Head of the IDF’s Central Command Gen. Yehuda Fuchs also rejected appeals made by Al-Haq and DCI-P. That night, IDF forces raided at least seven PFLP-linked institutions, including the offices of Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan, and UPWC. According to Al-Haq, IDF forces “shut down the main entrance with an iron plate leaving behind a military order declaring the organization unlawful.”
Since 2007, NGO Monitor has published numerous reports, based on open sources, documenting the close connections between these and other Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP. It is likely that Israeli authorities possess further materials on the NGO-PFLP ties, but it is unknown whether they will make this public.
See below for details – all previously published by NGO Monitor – regarding each of the designated organizations, including organizational ties between the NGOs and the PFLP, as well as individual links between NGO board members, officials, and employees and the terror group. A crucial aspect of these developments is the reaction from European funders. As detailed below, reaction in Europe have been varied, with some officials seeking to strengthen anti-terror funding mechanisms, while others have sought to discredit the designations. There is also data related to foreign governmental funding to these organizations.
A group that organises popular anti-Israel demonstrations has attacked interfaith dialogue, claiming it is a covert Zionist strategy to cover up Israeli “apartheid”, the JC has learned.
The Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB) — which arranged a major gathering outside Downing Street as Israel fought Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week — branded interfaith work between Jews and Muslims “faithwashing”.
PFB launched its campaign at a meeting at a London art gallery on 16 June under the title “How interfaith groups are being used to normalise Israeli apartheid”.
In a video of the meeting, Daud Abdullah, director of the news website Middle East Monitor and the former deputy chairman of the Muslim Council of Britain, is seen warning of “the misuse of interfaith dialogue to cover-up the crimes committed against the Palestinian people”. He claimed that such dialogue was favoured by “rich Jewish philanthropists” to “influence opinion in the Muslim community” and blunt its opposition to Israel.
During a question-and-answer session, James Thring, an activist who has appeared on former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s radio programme, said the underlying problem was “Talmudism”.
He claimed this was “the source of many Israeli actions”, because it meant Jews “think they are the chosen people, they think they have the right to attack other people, to deceive other people, to rob other people”.
His words were not challenged. Another speaker asked how the “trap” of attending interfaith sessions in synagogues could be avoided. And Rifat Odeh Kassis, a prominent Palestinian advocate and writer, said that the only acceptable interfaith events would be those that were “resistance-orientated”.
Marc Goldberg, Head of Investigations at the Community Security Trust (CST), said the event was part of a growing effort to undermine the interfaith movement, which is supported by many Jewish and Muslim leaders to foster mutual understanding.
In 2020, the then-Bristol University professor David Miller — since sacked for suggesting that Jewish students were agents of a foreign power — criticised Jews making chicken soup for the East London Mosque.
It was an example of how interfaith could be “exploited” to “normalise Zionism”, he claimed.
Attempts to delegitimise such dialogue had been gathering momentum for years, Mr Goldberg said.
In 2018, the pro-Iranian Islamic Commission on Human Rights (IHRC) claimed interfaith involved Jews “cosying up to mosques and Muslim groups” and was “nothing more than a deceitful attempt to normalise the continuing murder, maiming and dispossession of the Palestinian people”.
In May 2019, a talk by Rabbi Lea Mühlstein at the Mahfil Ali Mosque in Harrow was cancelled after claims she was “heavily involved in Zionist activities”, Mr Goldberg said.
Fiyaz Mughal, a co-founder of both Muslims Against Antisemitism and the interfaith network Faith Matters, told the JC that he found the claims made at the PFB meeting “disgusting”.
He said: “Those who seek to smear, falsify and undermine interfaith work do not understand what binds our communities together, and their malicious attempt to politicise this must be rejected.”
Rabbi David Mason of Muswell Hill synagogue, a leading proponent of interfaith activity, told the JC: “I’m proud we have built positive relationships with Muslim communities in my borough and across London.
“Although differences will always occur, be working together we create friendships and model a better society.
“The idea that such positive interfaith work is a Zionist plot grotesquely misses the point of our achievements.”
According to a leaked internal UN report, #UNRWA is being accused of mismanagement and abusing authority in the midst of a financial crisis.
In unserem Wohnhochhaus ist 2005 Herr A. eingezogen. Herr A. ist ein Neonazi. Jeder im Haus, der es wissen wollte, hat das von Anfang an gewusst. Aber die meisten wollten es lieber nicht wissen, weil sie fürchteten, dass das »die Harmonie« stören würde. Man müsse doch zusammen unter einem Dach wohnen, da sollte man Herrn A. nicht brüskieren, haben sie gesagt.
Herr A. wirkt ja auch gar nicht wie ein Neonazi. Er trägt keine Tarnfarbenhosen, keine Springerstiefel und auch keine Bomberjacken. Er bevorzugt Anzug und Krawatte und sieht aus wie ein netter älterer Herr. Solange er nicht den Mund aufmacht, ist er eigentlich ganz okay. Manchmal freilich sagt er Sachen, die nicht ganz astrein sind. Etwa, als er meinte, Juden würden das Trinkwasser im Haus vergiften. Da waren dann schon alle ziemlich schockiert und haben sich plötzlich wieder daran erinnert, dass Herr A. ja ein Neonazi ist. Das wurde dann aber auch schnell wieder vergessen.
Schon kurz darauf wurde Herr A. wieder zu allen gemeinsamen Veranstaltungen im Haus eingeladen, und alle taten so, als wäre nichts geschehen. Alle mögen Herrn A. und das weiß er auch. Sie laden ihn immer wieder in ihre Wohnungen ein, lassen sich mit ihm fotografieren und überreichen ihm Geldgeschenke. Sie behandeln ihn wie einen Star, wie ihren Herrn, zu dem sie aufschauen. Darum sieht Herr A. gar nicht ein, dass er sich ändern muss. Zumal er schon viel länger im Haus wohnt als alle anderen. »Wenn die ausziehen, bin ich immer noch hier«, sagt er. »Die müssen sich nach mir richten. Und das tun sie auch.«
So oder so ähnlich geht es deutschen Bundesregierungen mit Mahmud Abbas, dem PLO-Chef und seit Jahren ungewählten Präsidenten der Palästinensischen Autonomiebehörde, dessen demokratische Legitimation am 9. Januar 2009 endete. Womit er sich mittlerweile im 18. Jahr seiner vierjährigen Amtszeit befindet.
Während einer gemeinsamen Pressekonferenz mit Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz im Berliner Kanzleramt letzten Dienstag wurde Abbas gefragt, ob er sich zum 50. Jahrestag des von palästinensischen Terroristen verübten Terroranschlags auf die israelische Olympiamannschaft 1972 in München bei Israel entschuldigen werde. Das scheint auf den ersten Blick eine naive Frage: Abbas’ Fatah feiert den Mordanschlag jedes Jahr zum Jubiläum und preist die Tat als »Qualitätsoperation«. Doch die Antwort von Abbas zeigte, dass es richtig war, die Frage zu stellen und ihm Gelegenheit zu geben, seine Sicht darzulegen. Abbas sagte:
»Israel hat seit 1947 bis zum heutigen Tag 50 Massaker in 50 palästinensischen Orten begangen. 50 Massaker, 50 Holocausts.«
Nun tun im politischen Berlin alle so, als wären sie überrascht. Abbas ist 87 Jahre alt; vielleicht dachte er im Moment seiner Antwort, er sei in Ramallah. Vielleicht ist er aber auch noch ganz bei Sinnen und weiß um die antrainierte Vergesslichkeit westlicher Politiker, die ihm nie etwas nachtragen. Hatte er nicht im Juli 2016 vom EU-Parlament tosenden Applaus geerntet, nachdem er in einer Rede behauptet hatte, Juden würden Brunnen vergiften? Wörtlich sagte Abbas damals:
»Erst vor einer Woche haben israelische Rabbiner eine deutliche Erklärung abgegeben: Sie verlangten von ihrer Regierung, das Wasser zu vergiften, um Palästinenser zu töten.«
Und hatten nicht Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier und Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel Mahmud Abbas 2019 in Berlin empfangen, nur sechs Tage nachdem Terroristen von Abbas’ PLO die 17-jährige Israelin Rina Shnerb mit einer Bombe ermordet hatten (ein Mord, den Abbas naturgemäß nie verurteilt hat)? Die Bundesregierung brüstete sich damals gegenüber der Presse sogar damit, der »größte bilaterale Geber« von Abbas zu sein: »Im letzten Jahr haben wir 110 Millionen Euro eingesetzt.« Das war mehr als ein Drittel der 300 Millionen, die die Palästinensische Autonomiebehörde (PA) jedes Jahr für die Ermordung von Juden ausgibt.
Würde es in Berlin jemanden interessieren, wie die Palästinensische Autonomiebehörde regelmäßig Israelis und Nazis gleichsetzt und Israel einen »Holocaust« vorwirft, dann könnte man auch das wissen, es ist ja nicht geheim. Die Thesen, die in den Zeitungen und Fernsehsendern der auch von Deutschland finanzierten Palästinensischen Autonomiebehörde verbreitet werden, findet man auf der Website Palestinian Media Watchin englischer Übersetzung. Einige Beispiele:
Auf Facebook verbreitete Abbas’ Fatah-Partei im Jahr 2019, Juden hätten es aufgrund ihres angeblichen Charakters verdient gehabt, im Holocaust getötet zu werden. Mahmud Abbas selbst hat mit seiner Holocaust-Deutung auch in Deutschland schon Schlagzeilen gemacht, wenn auch sehr selten. Im Mai 2018 sagte er:
»Vom elften Jahrhundert bis zum Holocaust, der in Deutschland stattgefunden hat, waren jene Juden, die nach West- und Osteuropa zogen, alle zehn bis fünfzehn Jahre Massakern ausgesetzt.«
Die Ursache der »Massaker«, so Abbas, sei »deren soziale Funktion im Zusammenhang mit Banken und Zinsen« gewesen. Weiters behauptete Abbas, Hitler habe die Einwanderung der Juden nach Palästina unterstützt. Sogar die Deutsche Welle hat damals unter der Überschrift »Abbas’ Aussagen zum Holocaust sorgen für Entsetzen« davon berichtet. In dem DW-Bericht hieß es:
»Adolf Hitler habe die Einwanderung von Juden ins historische Palästina durch einen Deal zwischen dem deutschen Wirtschaftsministerium und der Anglo-Palestine Bank unterstützt, sagte Abbas in der Rede. Dadurch hätten Juden bei der Einwanderung all ihr Vermögen durch die Bank mitnehmen können.«
»Wer ist Mahmud Abbas wirklich?«, fragte das Magazin Cicero schon im August 2005. In dem Artikel wurde aus Abbas’ Doktorarbeit zitiert:
»Die zionistische Bewegung gab jedem Rassisten der Welt, angeführt von Hitler und den Nazis, die Erlaubnis, die Juden nach Gutdünken zu behandeln, solange die Einwanderung nach Palästina gewährleistet wurde. […] Zusätzlich zur Ermutigung der Verfolgung der Juden, damit diese ins Heilige Land emigrierten, wollten die Zionistenführer auch, dass Juden ermordet würden, weil mehr Opfer zu haben bedeutete, größere Rechte und stärkere Privilegien am Verhandlungstisch zu bekommen. Die Zionisten mussten die Zahl der Opfer erhöhen; mit diesen konnten sie dann bei der Abrechnung prahlen.«
Gaskammern, so Cicero, »finden in der Dissertation von Mahmud Abbas keine wahrhaft wissenschaftliche Würdigung. Es habe sie nicht gegeben. Abbas zitiert eine ›wissenschaftliche Studie‹ hierzu, die der französische Holocaust-Leugner Robert Faurisson erstellte.«
Der Cicero-Autor (dessen Name auf der Website nicht genannt wird) erinnerte auch daran, dass Abu Daoud, der Drahtzieher des Olympia-Massakers von München, in seiner Autobiografie schrieb, Mahmud Abbas sei als Schatzmeister der PLO direkt in die Anschlagplanung des Schwarzen Septembers eingebunden gewesen:
»In seiner Autobiografie ›Palästina: Von Jerusalem nach München‹ bezeichnet er Mahmud Abbas als ›den Finanzier unserer Operation‹. Abu Daoud will sich daran erinnern, wie Arafat und Abu Mazen [Kampfname von Mahmud Abbas; Anm. Mena-Watch] ihm Glück wünschten und ihn küssten, als er sich daranmachte, den Anschlag von München zu planen.«
Auch der in den USA geborene israelische Soziologe, Sozialarbeiter und Journalist David Bedein – als wichtigster Beobachter und Kritiker des Palästinenserhilfswerks UNRWA ein häufiger Gesprächspartner von Mena Watch – hat Abbas’ Dissertation gelesen und sie 2011 in einem Artikel kommentiert. Einige wichtige Punkte aus Bedeins Beitrag:
Von Mena-Watch um einen Kommentar zu Abbas’ jüngsten Äußerungen gebeten, schreibt Bedein per E-Mail:
»Abbas’ Kommentare zum Holocaust, die er in Berlin getätigt hat, machen deutlich, dass es an der Zeit ist, zu fordern, dass Abbas seine Doktorarbeit aus den Schulen und Bibliotheken der Palästinensischen Autonomiebehörde und der UNRWA entfernt.«
Zudem müsse Abbas »die These seiner ›akademischen‹ Arbeit widerrufen und verurteilen, wonach die zionistische Bewegung für den Holocaust verantwortlich gewesen sei«. Für »jede Nation«, so Bedein weiter,
»ist die Zeit gekommen, Wirtschaftshilfe an die PA und die UNRWA an die Forderung zu knüpfen, dass die PA und die UNRWA ihren Krieg gegen die Juden einstellen, den sie über ihre Schulen, Kunst- und Jugendklubs führen. Es ist an der Zeit, dass alle Gebernationen die UNRWA auffordern, Waffen- und Munitionsinspektionen an allen PA- und UNRWA-Schulen durchzuführen und Jugendbanden zu entwaffnen, ein für alle Mal. Es ist an der Zeit, dass die UNRWA in Übereinstimmung mit den Prinzipien der Vereinten Nationen und nicht in Übereinstimmung mit dem Diktat terroristischer Organisationen handelt.«
Readers of a certain vintage will remember this popular song released in 1963 and top of the hit parade for some time.
One definition I came across explained that “blowing in the wind” means “to be thought about and discussed but not decided upon or resolved.”
This succinctly sums up the current state of chaos and indecisive action on the part of most democracies as they face an increasing onslaught on their freedom, liberties and human rights.
Even more explicit are these lyrics taken from the song:
“How many times can a man turn his head?
Pretending that he just doesn’t see.
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind…….”
If you want to know exactly how vacillating political leaders and their advisers are, just take note of the multitude of examples. The spectacle of commentators, experts and those elected to lead turning their heads and pretending not to see the looming threats is enough to make any sane individual despair.
In Iran, the followers of Baha’i are being singled out again for persecution, incarceration, torture and death. This is not a new phenomenon, yet the silence of religious and lay leaders alike is deafening.
Salman Rushdie is stabbed by someone with ties to Iran yet the Biden Administration and the EU turn their heads. The height of hypocrisy is issuing meaningless “slap on the wrist” expressions of outrage while hurtling full speed toward an agreement that will guarantee Iran’s acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. Yet this is precisely the scenario being enacted in front of our very eyes by those who prefer to turn their heads. Presumably, when Iran has extracted the maximum number of concessions from those peddling appeasements of terror regimes, Israel will be expected to fall into line.
Taiwan officials have declared that the Communist Chinese armed forces are practising for an eventual invasion. Pentagon experts stated in response that this is “fantasy.” This deliberate denial of reality is an eerie resemblance to American slogans that they will not let Iran acquire nuclear capability when the Iranians themselves have already boasted that they can assemble an atomic bomb.
The Chinese Ambassador to Australia is reported by news media to have stated that “the anticipated Taiwan action will be a takeover and not an invasion. It will be a reunification and a coming back to the motherland.” Can their intentions be any clearer?
The reactions of the democracies are as clueless as their responses to the agenda of the PA and all their terror-supporting friends. In the face of Abbas in Ramallah praising the murder of Israelis and paying stipends and pensions to the murderers, Israel is urged to agree to the establishment of a terror State in the heart of our country. The expressions of fake sympathy gushing forth when pregnant Israeli mothers and their children are murdered are negated by their silence in the face of any democracy or respect for human rights in the PA and Hamas-controlled Gaza.
It is no wonder, therefore, that most sane Israelis shake their heads in amazement when the UN Ambassador for Middle East “peace” burbles that “cycles of violence will only stop when an independent Palestinian State lives side by side with Israel”.
This week marks the anniversary of the 1929 mass massacre by Arabs of Jews in Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed. To commemorate this act of terror, the Palestinian Authority lauded and honoured the memory of the perpetrators, calling them heroes. What further proof of the futility and insanity of embracing these people as peace partners can be provided? Yet, despite all the evidence, the UN and all our fellow leftist lemmings persist in turning their heads and ignoring the foul stench blowing in the wind.
In Germany of all places, Abbas stood alongside the German Chancellor and not only refused to apologise for the PLO massacre of Israeli Olympic sportspeople fifty years ago but brazenly accused Israel of having perpetrated numerous “holocausts” against Palestinian Arabs since 1947. The German Chancellor grimaced but did not walk out or immediately denounce this blatant lie. He instead shook the liar’s hands. Only when uproar ensued did he try to wriggle out of his non-reaction. As for Abbas, the firestorm of condemnation obviously caught him on the back foot but his subsequent weasel words merely highlighted his hypocrisy.
The continuing embrace of this “leader” is a perfect example of not wanting to face real truths.
Years of weak appeasement have resulted in North Korea now menacing its neighbours with impunity. The warm embrace of this rogue regime by Russia, China, Iran and the “peace-loving” PA in Ramallah illustrates the dismal failure to confront terror and points to a disastrous calamity facing us.
The ex-Al-Jazeera chief tweeted that the “same killer is behind the deaths of Jesus and Palestinians.” He quickly deleted this tweet once it was exposed but one wonders where the uproar over this blatant Jew hate was. It’s obviously another case of ignoring noxious odours carried in the wind.
The fastest growing “religion” these days, especially in the USA, is the climate change denomination. Among its most fanatic followers are supporters of the Democratic Party, and as over 70% of American Jews vote for them, they are overwhelmingly represented among this new secular faith. There is nothing wrong, of course, with being concerned about protecting the environment but somehow the proponents of climate change have turned it into some sort of obsessive compulsion which is taking over people’s lives. Every disaster, whether natural or man-made, is now attributed to climate change and the apocalyptic prophecies multiply by the day.
Lost in all this hysteria is the fact that ever since humanity inhabited planet earth, there have been climatic dramas. The flood at the time of Noah plus subsequent cycles of ice ages and heat waves all occurred before fossil fuel became the bogeyman it has become today.
Protecting this planet of ours is, without doubt, an important mitzvah of Judaism but it does not trump our obligation to survive as Jews. That is why when reading a report sourced from JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) it occurred to me that somehow American Jewry, or at least large parts of it, has been hijacked by climate change hysteria to the exclusion of anything else.
This report summary stated that “American Jews rank climate change above all other problems.” It seems from previous surveys that a far bigger percentage of American Jews believe climate change is a concern than any other group of Americans.
One would think that concerns about Israel, Judeophobia and increasing assimilation would be of equal if not greater concern. Unfortunately, this is not the case among non-Orthodox affiliated Jews. A study published by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) found that only one-third of Jewish people under the age of 30 in the USA find it very important for their grandchildren to be Jewish as well. Among young Jewish Democrats, support for Israel falls to only 48%. According to the policy think tank, many young American Jews lack a religious or national bond to Judaism and only view it from a cultural perspective.
Tikkun Olam has superseded most other mitzvot for progressive American Jews and is inexorably leading to a Jewish change far more dramatic and long lasting than climate change.
“How many times can we turn our heads
Pretending that we just don’t want to see?
The answers my friends, are blowing in the wind…”
This essay is dedicated to the 1,409 men, women and children who were murdered as a result of the Oslo process, which involved unilateral concessions to an unrepentant terrorist organization, a policy conceived by Israeli politician Shimon Peres, who died in 2016 at the age of 93.
President Shimon Peres Photo: Henry Benjamin
Instead of falling into disgrace, Peres’s memory now basks in the glory of the new film “Never Stop Dreaming: The Life and Legacy of Shimon Peres,” slated for distribution by Netflix to 190 nations.
The Peres movie launch coincided with renovations to the Jerusalem Convention Centre, to be renamed for Peres next August on the 100th anniversary of his birth. A “Peres Convention Centre” will undoubtedly screen the new Peres movie with a transparent purpose: to promote the agenda of Shimon Peres.
Full disclosure: I knew Peres and worked for him as a foreign press aide during the 1992 Israeli election. I was later involved in news coverage of Peres for the Makor Rishon newspaper and periodicals abroad.
Viewers of the new film, especially those who live outside of Israel, cannot perceive the depths of distortion that its research team fell into, wittingly or unwittingly.
The movie begins with the state funeral accorded to Peres, who served as president, prime minister, foreign minister and defence minister of Israel. The movie claims that this was one of the largest funerals in Israel’s history but did not mention that the Peres Centre for Peace chartered buses to the event. Moreover, larger funerals were conducted for two assassinated Israeli officials, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, which needed no chartered buses.
The movie recounts the key role that Peres played in achieving a peace accord with Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, without mentioning the fact that the PLO never ratified the accord, even though Peres dispatched Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin to thank Arafat for allegedly doing so.
The movie also does not include the role that Peres played in convincing the public that the PLO had changed its covenant in order to remove the clause pledging to destroy Israel, which never happened.
While lauding Peres for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the film ignores well-publicized documentation that the Peres Center provided a member of the Nobel committee with a $1.2 million gratuity in order to secure the prize for Peres.
The movie does note that Peres lost his first bid for the Israeli presidency without mentioning the financial scandals that rocked the Peres Center and caused his defeat. Also ignored is the fact that Peres reassumed a cabinet position only after the Knesset Ethics Committee forced him to divest himself of holdings in the leading Palestinian Authority communications firm.
Even though Peres conceived of the ill-fated idea of arming PLO security forces, the movie does not mention that those PLO forces wound up absorbing terrorist groups that have attacked Israel.
This begs the question: Why did the producers of this movie not interview even one relative of those murdered by Arab terrorists as a result of the failed peace process conceived by Peres? Moreover, why did the movie’s producers not challenge the central idea of the Peres peace process: That you can create an incentive for the PLO to abandon terror?
David Bedein
Why did the movie not challenge the misrepresentations that Peres advanced? For example, on Jan. 1, 2000, Peres assured a Jewish media conference that the PLO had adopted an educational curriculum advocating peace. When I told Peres that our news and research agency had examined all P.A. schoolbooks and found that they contained not a word of peace, Peres stepped away from the microphone and said, “I know.”
Israel advocates will have to contend in the years to come with renewed sympathy and support for the policies conceived by Peres and promoted by this movie, which hallows the memory of a man who transformed the image of a lethal terrorist organisation into that of an advocate of peace and reconciliation.
Nonetheless, Peres, Rabin and Arafat got the Nobel Peace Prize. A hard act to follow.
On the wall of my office hangs a composite picture of hundreds of people who were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the Oslo process. Having covered many of their funerals, I feel an obligation to the families of the victims of the peace process to challenge the honour bestowed on Shimon Peres by this new movie. It leaves uninformed viewers assuming that Peres should be seen as a guardian of peace, not a protector of terror.
But the time has come to document the consequences of the policies Peres advocated and their human cost.
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