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Activists Push For UNRWA Replacement At Geneva Conference
On February 27, 2024, a conference convened at the UN in Geneva, spearheaded by activists advocating for the replacement of UNRWA.
However, the UN has unequivocally stated its stance against the replacement of UNRWA, which oversees 5 million people in “temporary” refugee camps, descendants of Arabs who fled villages during the 1948 war.
Given the permanence of UNRWA’s presence, the imperative now is to address the challenge at hand: How to align UNRWA’s operations with the values of peace and reconciliation, central to UN principles.
Contrary to promoting peace, UNRWA has been accused of fostering hostility towards Jews, advocating for the “right of return” to pre-1948 villages through armed force. This stance is bolstered by support from various entities, including Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and several nations.
As the UN shows no indication of altering UNRWA’s policies, the parliaments of donor nations can step in to oversee and influence UNRWA’s direction. Here are seven proposed steps to promote UNRWA’s role as an advocate for peace:
- Revitalize the Refugee Working Group (RWG) of donor nations, tasked with ensuring transparency in UNRWA’s budget allocation.
- Disarm UNRWA facilities to prevent militarization within refugee camps.
- Remove UNRWA personnel affiliated with terrorist organizations to uphold neutrality and integrity.
- Prosecute UNRWA officials who support or facilitate violence, ensuring accountability for wrongdoing.
- Establish a new UNRWA school system aligned with UN guidelines on peace and reconciliation, fostering a culture of harmony among students.
- Introduce UNRWA maps that accurately depict sovereign nations, promoting geographical accuracy and inclusivity.
- Adopt the UNHCR principle of dignified refugee resettlement to provide long-term solutions for displaced individuals.
While amending UNRWA’s mandate would necessitate approval from the United Nations General Assembly, implementing peaceful changes in UNRWA’s day-to-day policies does not require such endorsement.
PA organizations holding reconciliation talks in Moscow
Representatives of the Palestinian Arab organizations began talks on national reconciliation in Moscow on Wednesday, under the auspices of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Jihad Taha, a spokesman for Hamas, denied the reports that the possibility of establishing a Palestinian government of technocrats was discussed in the reconciliation talks, stressing that the top priority now is “the cessation of Israeli aggression” against the Palestinian Arab people.
In a conversation with the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, Taha said that it is too early for any discussion on the question of establishing a government of technocrats, and that efforts are now being directed to achieving an agreement on a ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the return of the displaced to the northern Gaza Strip.
“The connection and coordination between the Palestinian organizations continues, but the issue of establishing a government has not come up for discussion at the current time,” Taha said.
The newspaper quoted another source in Hamas as saying that Hamas has made it clear in principle that it is not opposed to the establishment of a national unity government, provided that it is inclusive on the basis of a defined ideological platform and that its functioning can be examined in the future.
Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since 2007, when Hamas violently took control of Gaza in a bloody coup.
A unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed in 2015 when PA chairman Abbas decided to dissolve it amid a deepening rift between the sides.
The two sides signed a reconciliation agreement in October of 2017, as part of which Hamas was to transfer power in Gaza by December 1 of that year.
That deadline was initially put back by 10 days and later reportedly hit “obstacles”. It has never been implemented.
The Former US Ambassador to Israel Who Can’t Get Basic Facts Right
(Moshe Phillips is a commentator on Jewish affairs whose writings appear regularly in the American and Israeli press.)
Martin Indyk has spent his entire professional life immersed in the Arab-Israeli conflict, holding prominent positions in advocacy groups, think tanks, and the State Department. So how is it that he still can’t get the most basic facts about the conflict right?
In the March-April 2024 issue of Foreign Affairs (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/palestine-strange-resurrection-two-state-solution-indyk), Indyk makes the case for why it would be great to have a sovereign Palestinian state as soon as possible. Yet again and again throughout the essay, he makes glaring errors in referring to key aspects of the history and nature of the Arab war against Israel.
For someone who served as ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State (among other positions), Indyk is either surprisingly ignorant or surprisingly careless about his area of presumed expertise. Either possibility is alarming.
Let’s start with Indyk’s “history” of the idea of creating a Palestinian state. He wants to show that the proposal has deep roots. It’s not just something that he and his State Department friends cooked up last week; it has a tradition. Because, presumably, something with a long history is less scary than something which seems new and radical. He writes: “The two-state solution dates back to at least 1937, when a British commission suggested a partition of the British mandate territory…”
Indyk is off by fifteen years. The two-state solution began in 1922, not 1937. And what happened in 1922 was not just some British proposal—the British actually implemented it. They physically partitioned the Palestine Mandate territory, giving the 78% east of the Jordan River to the Arabs, leaving only 22% on the western side for the Jews.
Too bad the British didn’t just honestly call the eastern part of Palestine “East Palestine.” That would have spared us all a lot of rhetorical confusion over the years. Instead, they chose to call it “Trans-Jordan.” Not because the people living there were ethnically “Trans-Jordanian.” They were no different from the Arabs living on the western side of the Jordan. They called it “Trans-Jordan” because that means “other side of the Jordan.” The name was geographically convenient. Many years later, the country’s king changed the name to “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,” so that his particular tribe’s name would be enshrined as part of the country’s name. It was what we call a land-grab.
Could Indyk really not know how, when and why Jordan was created? Not likely. More likely is that he was being deliberately disingenuous when he skipped 1922 and went straight to 1937.
Another blatant error by Indyk in his Foreign Affairs article concerns the crucial issue of Palestinian Arab refugees. After the UN’s 1947 resolution, he writes, “The ensuing war led to the founding of the state of Israel; millions of Palestinians, meanwhile, became refugees, and their national aspirations languished.”
How many falsehoods can an alleged “expert” pack into one sentence? First, the war of 1948 was not just “an ensuing war,” as if both sides were culpable. It was unprovoked Arab aggression. Israel did not invade any Arab countries; five Arab armies invaded Israel.
Second, “millions” of Palestinian Arabs did not become refugees. Mainstream historians and demographers estimate that about 1.3-million Arabs lived in the Palestinian Mandate in 1947, and between 600,000 and 700,000 of them left their homes to get out of the way of the invading Arab armies. Not “millions.”
Third, their “national aspirations” did not “languish.” Their aspiration was to annihilate Israel, and they acted on it every day. There were constant Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks throughout the 1950s and continuing ever since. In 1964, they established the PLO. They have fought endlessly for their “national aspirations,” that is, to replace Israel with “Palestine”—by murdering Jews.
When Indyk gets to 1967, he does it again. He writes that the Six Day War “placed millions of Palestinians under direct Israeli control.” Wrong again. In 1967, there were about 400,000 Arabs living in Gaza, and another 900,000 living in Judea-Samaria. Not “millions.”
I understand why Indyk inflates the numbers. The larger the number, the worse Israel looks. But changing history to score political points is just wrong.
Martin Indyk wants us to trust him. He wants Israel and world Jewry to believe that based on his vast experience, he knows best how to bring about Middle East peace. But looking at his new Foreign Affairs article, so chock full of bias, exaggerations, and omissions of key historical facts—all to Israel’s detriment—I would say that he has not yet earned the Jewish People’s trust.
END
Who’s afraid of a Palestinian state?
All you have to do to set off a firestorm in Israel is say, “Palestinian state.”
Suddenly, nearly everyone is outraged, incensed and otherwise triggered by the reference coming from US, EU and others about setting up a Palestinian state. “It’s a prize for terrorism,” complain some. “It would put a Hamas state on Israel’s doorstep,” warn others. Or as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it with characteristic understatement and sensitivity, “It would bring Oct. 7 to Kfar Saba.”
For those of you living in Antarctica for the past five months—Oct. 7 is the date when Hamas sent thousands of terrorists across Israel’s border with Gaza to massacre, rape and burn 1,200 Israelis and kidnap over 200 others. Kfar Saba is just east of Tel Aviv.
Let’s take a breath here. There are objective reasons why Israel should not be reacting so negatively to its allies floating the idea of a Palestinian state. Here are a few:
- It’s not going to happen.
- Israel would do itself a favor by taking part in the process of negotiating toward a Palestinian state, because
- It’s not going to happen.
- Creation or even declaration of a Palestinian state would relieve Israel of several burdensome chores, but (did we mention already?)
- It’s not going to happen.
Let’s start with points 1, 3 and 5. It’s not going to happen because the Palestinians will never accept a state within reasonable parameters. They have painted themselves into a corner with their outlandish, non-negotiable “right of return” claim, as if 5.9 million “refugees” have the God-given right to “return” to the villages in Israel that their grandparents left 75 years ago.
Many of the villages don’t exist anymore, and anyway, that demand would mean that while the Palestinians had their own state, they would insist that the majority of their people must go and live in someone else’s state, namely Israel.
Not only that, but in turning down Israel’s offer of a state in the equivalent of all of the West Bank and Gaza, a link between the two through Israel, and parts of Jerusalem—the chief Palestinian negotiator, quoting his president, declared that the Palestinians would not compromise over “a single inch… a single stone” of east Jerusalem. That would mean erasing the history and development of the past five-plus decades.
It’s part of a pattern. The Palestinians are always demanding to go back to the borders and situations they rejected last time around. They rejected the 1947 UN partition, starting a war that ended up with cease-fire lines. Now those lines have been enshrined as the holy “1967 borders,” because Israel crossed the lines and captured the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai in a war the Arabs provoked in 1967. Israel’s offers of 2000 and 2008 to trade territory on either side of the cease-fire lines were rejected.
So really, it’s not going to happen. Therefore, Israel has nothing to lose by saying, “OK, we’re in, let’s see where this leads, no guarantees.”
Point 2, taking part in the process, means that if in the end, a coalition of moderate Arab states and Western powers comes up with an interim stage that includes taking over rule of the West Bank and Gaza, drawing a border, and guaranteeing peace and quiet with permission for Israel to act it its own defense—it’s hard to figure how that would be harmful to Israel.
Oh, of course, Israel has been saying for decades that it can’t trust anyone else with its security. But Israel just bungled its way into a situation where it can’t go it alone anymore. That is the “price” Israel must pay for its own negligence on Oct. 7.
Hamas is to blame for its atrocities, but Israel let it happen. As a result, Israel was forced to bring in outside parties to help it fight Hamas, and that’s never for free. It would be better to accept the price and work with the coalition, instead of opposing it and being lumped together with the consistently rejectionist Palestinians.
Point 4 is something to think about—for the Palestinians, too.
Under the “Oslo” process, the partial peace accords Israel signed with the Palestinians between 1993 and 1995, Israel undertook a number of obligations. If a Palestinian state were created, or even if the Palestinians declared that they have a state, the painfully detailed and explicit Oslo accords would be automatically canceled..
Trashing them would mean, for starters, no more Palestinian use of Israeli seaports. Israel would no longer collect taxes for the Palestinians. Coordination of customs duties would end. So would security cooperation—that would revert to the Arab-international sponsors.
Not only that—recognized borders would mean the end of the “occupation.” Israel could close its borders completely if it so decided. Every nation has the right to seal its borders. Just as Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon are closed, so could the border between Israel and a Palestinian state. Tens of thousands of Palestinian workers in Israel? Treatment of Palestinian patients in Israeli hospitals? Commerce? Not unless Israel agreed.
Point 4 is the main reason why legendary Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat never implemented the clauses in the Oslo accords that authorized him to declare a Palestinian state as early as 1997.
None of the above conditions have changed. That’s why when it comes to a Palestinian state, Israel need not fear—it’s not going to happen.
— — —
Correspondent MARK LAVIE has been covering Israel and the Mideast since 1972. His second book, “Why Are We Still Afraid?” recaps his career and comes to a surprising conclusion.
Oslo accords: On the way to the garbage? (Photo by Mark Lavie)
UN cannot stop an effective campaign to curb UNRWA policies.
Concerning a new on-line petition to replace UNRWA:
UNRWA reports to the UN General Assembly, which will not allow UNHCR or any other UN agency to replace UNRWA.
The UN will simply not allow one UN agency to replace another UN agency.
However, the UN cannot stop a effective campaign against UNRWA policies.
Please review:
Have worked against the UNRWA policies for 37 years.
There is no reason to invest in a strategy doomed to failure.
US training and arming 5,000 Palestinian Authority troops in Jordan
Palestinian Civil Defense and Security Officers take part in an exercise that simulates different scenarios, in the city of Nablus, in the West Bank, March 14, 2023. Photo by Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** תרגיל
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The Biden administration is currently training and arming several thousand Palestinian Authority troops, commentator Carolyn Glick has recently denounced.
As reported in The Media Line, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and Axios, a recent joint security summit included the Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization Hussein al-Sheikh; the head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, Majed Faraj; and the diplomatic advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas, Majdi Al-Khalidi. From the Israeli side, Israel’s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Shin Bet intelligence service chief Ronen Bar attended. Also in attendance were the heads of intelligence of Jordan and Egypt. The negotiations were overseen by the US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf and coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa in the Biden administration, Brett McGurk.
The stated goal of the summit was to boost Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation and solidify understandings that already have been reached regarding the steps that the two sides would take to de-escalate tensions.
According to Glick, the training, outlined by Lieutenant General Michael R. Fenzel, US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, provides for the military training of 5,000 Palestinians in counterterrorism and commando tactics. At the end of the training, the Palestinian officers will bring with them 5,000 rifles and additional “anti-terror equipment” to Palestinian cities and towns inside Samaria and in the areas surrounding Hebron. The plan, also “foresees the deployment of foreign forces, including U.S. military forces, on the ground.”
The program, originally set up by President George W. Bush, has already trained several thousand Palestinians in four-month courses at a facility in Jordan already used by US-backed Iraqi forces. The program aims at establishing a force of nearly 50,000 trained Palestinian soldiers. None of the instructors will be U.S. government personnel. The program requires detailed background checks for each recruit and Israel has a veto over who participates because it has to permit them to travel to Jordan.
Unlike the program being initiated by the Biden administration, the original program, supervised by U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, was explicitly designed to train Palestinian troops in riot control and other police methods to control civilians—not counterterrorism. As Dayton put it at the time, “we don’t give out any guns or bullets.”
The new program proposed by the Biden administration is distinctly unlike the original plan in that explicitly provides “guns and bullets” and the training to use them, creating a special force of armed PA security forces.
For its part, the PA agreed to stop its efforts to bring forward a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning Israel’s decision to build and legalize more settlements.
In the article in JNS, Glick cited a report by Israel’s Channel 14 as outlining the US plan to train PA security forces in Jordan. Glick pointed out the fatal flaw in the plan; the direct involvement of PA security personnel in terrorist attacks targeting Israelis.
“During the course of the Palestinian terror war 20 years ago, U.S.-trained P.A. forces murdered 26 IDF soldiers in 2002 alone,” Glick wrote. “The Palestinians learned how to use cell phones as remote detonation devices from their American trainers. Over the years, they have put that knowledge to use not to fight terror but to kill Israelis in terrorist attacks.
“The P.A., whose forces the U.S. seeks to “empower,” is controlled by the Fatah terror group. P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of Fatah. Fatah terrorists carried out most of the murderous terror attacks in 2021-2022. Several of those attacks were carried out by P.A. security officers.”
At last month’s summit in Jordan aimed at calming the violence between Israel and the Palestinians, Hady Amr, the Biden administration’s special representative for Palestinian affairs, promoted an American plan requiring Israel to sharply curtail counter-terror operations by the IDF.
Gatestone Institute reported on the plan, describing it as “a political and military nightmare” since it reportedly calls for the foreign military to be stationed alongside PA forces in Israel in the future.
“[The Israelis] would find themselves in the impossible position of risking harming the Europeans and Americans forces stationed there,” Gatestone wrote. “These troops, mingled among the Palestinians, would essentially be ‘human shields,’ deliberately placed in harm’s way to prevent Israel from taking any action.”
Dr. Mordechai Kedar acknowledged that the plan to give commando training to PA forces was in place and ready to begin. He explained that this was bad for Israel since the PA security forces play an active role in terrorism. He explained that the intention of the Biden administration was focused on the Palestinian Authority.
“This is just another example of how the Americans are trying to resuscitate the Palestinian Authority,” Dr. Kedar said. “The stated purpose is to train the PA police to maintain order and deal with terrorists in their midst. But this is a bluff. The real purpose is to maintain order on the day after Mahmoud Abbas leaves the picture.”
Dr. Kedar explained that the security organizations of the PA are currently under the control of the Palestinian Authority General Intelligence Services chief, Majed Farej, appointed by Abbas in 2009. Five months after President Biden took office, Farej traveled to Washington to meet with his counterparts in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
“The Americans understand that he will be the most likely to take over after Abbas,” Dr. Kedar said. “One way or another, Abbas is going to leave, probably very soon. There are at least five militias who are right now preparing for that day. That is one of the reasons for the violence in Samaria right now. They are jockeying for position, trying to show who is stronger.”
According to Dr, Kedar, the Americans want to make sure that they are supporting the winner.
“It is just another example of the Americans meddling in the Middle East without understanding the culture or the situation,” he said.
“Israel was forced to allow it,” Dr. Kedar added. “Netanyahu chose not to fight this. He is already out of favor with the Biden administration. And if there is a massive civil war in the PA after Abbas leaves, Netanyahu doesn’t want to get blamed. But Israel always gets blamed when the Palestinians kill each other, like after Hamas won the elections in Gaza.”
Prof. Efraim Inbar, a professor emeritus of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a veteran authority on the Arab-Israeli conflict and strategic developments in the Mideast, was skeptical of the plan to train PA security forces.
“The US expects that when the PA security forces return, they will add to the security of the region,” Prof.Inbar said. “That seems doubtful. The PA security forces are not going to use force against Palestinians in Samaria. I am sure the Israeli government understands this but they have no choice but to appease the Biden administration.”
According to Inbar, this move may help Abbas and his people when there is a battle for power, but it has no benefit for Israel or our security.
“A Palestinian army is a part and parcel of creating a Palestinian state,” Prof. Inbar said. “The Palestinians are not a state and it does not seem that they will become a state anytime soon. A state has one very clear and necessary trait; a monopoly on the use of force. The PA lost this monopoly when Hamas took over Gaza by forcing the PA out. Now, in Jenin and Shechem (Nablus), new militias are cropping up. The PA can’t become a state if they aren’t the sole power. It really has little to do with Israel.”
The Zionist Organization of America condemned the US plan “in the strongest possible terms”, emphasizing that the US-led military intervention is an explicit violation of Article IV.3 of the 1995 Oslo Accords II.
Article XV of the same agreement states that “both sides shall take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crimes, and hostilities directed against each other…”, a measure the PA is clearly not taking as it pays stipends to terrorists and their families.
“Thus, under the Biden administration’s plan, Israel would be restricted from defending innocent Israelis from terrorists; and much of Judea/Samaria would become a “safe haven” for terrorists to retreat to and be celebrated after perpetrating murderous terror attacks in Israel, with no consequences,” the ZOA wrote. “Moreover, American and other foreign forces on the ground would become sitting ducks, subject to Palestinian-Arab terror attacks. American and foreign soldiers would also become human shields, who block Israel from going after the terrorists, lest foreign forces be caught in the crossfire. Further, the PA will want foreign forces to include Iranians, thereby introducing even more terror into the region.”
According to ZOA, if the Biden administration proceeded with its plan, Israel would have the right to deport and ban any Palestinian-Arab commandos trained by the U.S. from re-entering Israeli territory, including Judea/Samaria. In addition, Israel could expel or refuse entry to any foreign forces and U.S. trainers.
“Israel has always been responsible for her own defense and has never asked for a single American soldier to protect the Jewish State,” ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said. “The administration’s plan is a horrifically grotesque idea, which will weaken Israel’s counterterrorism defenses while massively increasing Palestinian Arab terrorism. The Palestinian Authority, which would supposedly direct this new elite armed force, is itself a terror organization that incites and pays Arabs to murder Jews. This outrageous proposal would result in the murder of more Israelis, and must be opposed and scrapped.”
We have your back
As Brutus and his allies plunged their knives into Julius Caesar, they all declared, “We have your back.”
How apt and appropriate this cynical declaration of false support seems these days as so-called friends and allies of Israel sharpen their own knives.
Joe Biden has assured Israel that he has its back.
Israelis can only shake their head in wonderment while watching as Iran races to the nuclear finishing line and the Palestinian Arab Authority is promised a prize for its support of Hamas and 7 October.
In the immediate aftermath of the 7 October Hamas pogrom, the outpouring of shocked sympathy by friends was taken as a positive sign that finally political sanity was dawning. Alas, this reaction was just a fleeting phenomenon soon to be replaced by the old traditional condemnations. It has taken just a generation for the genocidal deeds of the Germans and their willing accomplices to be forgotten, marginalised and misappropriated. After the October massacre, it only took a few weeks for the blame to be transferred to the victims.
This time around, the sight of Israelis actually fighting back and making sure that the perpetrators and all their willing supporters faced retribution proved too much to stomach. With expressions of hypocritical outrage emanating from the White House, such as “over the top”, the stage was set for an avalanche of denunciations. Add in the urgent necessity to appease and abase oneself before the voters go to the polls in the USA and you have a perfect recipe for plunging in the knives.
The State Department, the Europeans and fair-weather friends from further afield needed no encouragement to issue ringing endorsements of warnings, admonitions and unsolicited advice. It is instructive to note that not one of them demanded the release of the kidnapped hostages as a prerequisite for any sort of pause in hostilities and facilitations of aid. One would think that the first and most urgent priority should be their unconditional release before any talk of ceasefires. It now transpires that the medicines belatedly allowed into Gaza only reached some of the hostages and the rest were most likely stolen by Hamas in the same way that international aid is hijacked.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has once again demonstrated its total lack of interest in looking after the welfare of Jews. Their total lack of concern is, of course, merely a repetition of their abysmal performance during the Shoah years.
The reactions of so-called friends and allies in the face of UNRWA deceptions and Palestinian Authority charades are indicative of the sorry and sad state of affairs we face these days.
The UN stands fully exposed as the repository of international double standards and corrupt practices. While criminal gangs flourish, rogue regimes get away with murder, UN members threaten the elimination of fellow nations and despotic countries flourish, Israel is hauled in front of the ICJ for having the chutzpah to protect its citizens.
The refusal of the so-called democracies to fight back against this tsunami of hate and incitement is merely putting the final nails into the UN and its associated bodies.
Defenders of the Biden/Blinken team assert that their staunch supposed support of Israel at the UN and in providing vital weapons proves that they have “our back.” President Herzog has even lauded Biden as “following in the steps of giants” If he was trying to compare him to Harry Truman, it seems to be a rather pathetic comparison.
The plain fact is that if one closely analyses the rhetoric and gestures emanating from Washington one can discern an unmistakable trend emerging.
A combination of several factors makes the sound of knives being sharpened very obvious.
This year is a crucial election period, and the Democrats need all the progressive votes they can muster. That means more pandering to the woke anti-Israel groups of all ethnicities. It gives the historically anti-Israel State Department more scope to indulge in their traditional biased policies. Administration officials have already travelled to Michigan to apologize for overzealous support of Israel, and appropriate breast-beating by Democratic Party court Jews has been the order of the day. Well-placed “leaks” have hinted at possible impending slowdowns in weapons transfers, and heavy-handed hints of Israel’s alleged breaches of international law have surfaced.
The loudest and most obvious indication of which way the foul winds are blowing has been the not-so-subtle suggestion that an independent State of Palestine could be recognised. This would occur before terror has been subdued and eradicated and without any sort of agreement or consultation with Israel. Euphoric noises about a “revitalised” Palestinian authority only add to the sense of unreality and hallucinatory visions concocted in a White House where the incumbent thinks that El-Sisi is the President of Mexico.
The cumulative effects of all these heavy-handed hints from our alleged buddies in Washington are paroxysms of delight in Tehran, Moscow, and terror groups cheered on by their surrogates in South Africa, North Korea and other such champions of democracy and human rights. It also energises knee jerk measures from the likes of the EU, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the World Court is currently spending a week deliberating whether Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem are illegally occupied by Israel. Historical and legal facts are irrelevant in a situation where the big lies have already been swallowed as the accepted truth.
Those supporting fictitious narratives are emboldened by the spectacle of Israel’s supposedly sincere friends preparing to literally “have our back” with all that implies. Drooling on the sidelines and impatient to “help” in any way possible are the corrupt terror inciters and facilitators in Ramallah. With the big prize dangling in front of them and suffering no consequences for their unsubtle desire to consummate a marriage with Hamas and other terror offspring what can possibly go wrong?
Erupting to the surface are lethal libels recycled from the past as well as agendas tailored for current consumption by those anointed as “peace partners.”
In the Middle Ages and beyond, the Jews of Europe were accused of deicide, blood libels and poisoning wells. The mutated versions of these lies have now resurfaced as anti-Israel mobs regurgitate them on every continent. The UN Human Rights Council, true to form, has now accused the IDF of “raping Palestinian Arab women and children while in detention.” Without any shred of evidence or veracity, this modern-day libel will, thanks to social media, go viral. The idea, of course, is to deflect any attention away from what Hamas and Palestinian Arabs did to the 7 October victims and abductees.
Qatar is portrayed as an honest broker. This fraudulent claim has been swallowed by the gullible, who prefer to ignore the fact that it hosts Hamas leaders and funds their activities. The Qataris have complained that the release of hostages should not be a condition for a ceasefire. That claim reveals their true agenda.
The Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister let the cat out of the bag when he stated that recognition of Palestine was not the only requirement to normalisation of relations with Israel. Can anyone hear the knives sharpening as Biden & Blinken push for this “deal of the millennium?”
The best clue as to why a “revitalised” PA is nothing more than science fiction and a mirage is revealed in the recent declaration by the unelected PA Prime Minister speaking on behalf of his master’s voice (Abbas). This so-called apostle of peace complained bitterly that too many people were focusing on the events of 7 October. He made it clear that the world needs to forget about it and concentrate instead on handing over Israel’s heartland and Capital.
In case the message was not plain enough he emphasised that it is not about PA reforms. In fact, it’s all about merging with the perpetrators of the pogrom. Moscow is hosting a meeting of all the Islamic terror groups with the aim of persuading them to unite with the PLO/Fatah movement and thus present a united front of terror against Israel. The veil of deceit and deception has thus been torn away from the PA which speaks out of both sides of its mouth in international forums.
Currently putting on an Oscar-winning performance at The Hague, the representatives of the PA are trying to convince the world that the evil Israelis are engaged in heinous crimes. Concurrently the corrupt PA and its unelected gangsters are working to amalgamate with the perpetrators of the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah.
Israel’s message to the rest of the world must be articulated loudly and clearly.
Having our back means defeating terror and not rewarding murderers. It is as simple as that.
Hungary Refuses To Pile On to Europe’s Anti-Israel Bandwagon
With even Prince William and rather less gently the British parliament turning up the volume of the global din over Gaza, the European Union has this week leveled an almost collective swing at Israel. Almost, because what most EU foreign ministers see as a principled stance by calling on Israel to abort an anticipated attack on Hamas holdouts at Rafah, Hungary alone sees as a misguided move at best.
The Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, telegraphed Hungary’s defiance of the Eurogang by abstaining from a joint declaration that stated in part, “an immediate humanitarian pause that would lead to a lasting ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages and the provision of humanitarian assistance.” That statement was issued on Monday in the name of “Foreign Ministers of 26 Member-States of the European Union.”
Israel accuses Hamas of hiding among Palestinian Arab civilians, something the terrorist group denies despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. The EU diplomats fail to acknowledge the extraordinary measures that the IDF takes, at considerable risk to its own troops, to avoid civilian casualties.
Thus the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said ahead of the joint declaration: “We have to continue putting pressure on Israel to make them understand that there are so many people in the streets of Rafah, it will be impossible to avoid civilian casualties.” Not for the first time, Budapest stood apart, marking that in order for the declaration to be politically binding, it would have required a 27-country consensus.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has long been an outlier when it comes to European financial support for Ukraine, though in recent months he has relented on that somewhat. With Budapest’s staunch support for Israel as it wrestles with security challenges south of Jerusalem and also north and east of it, some of Mr. Orbán’s international modi operandi are becoming clearer. To wit, he is no waffler when it comes to standing by his friends, one of whom is Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Ahead of the joint declaration, the Jerusalem Post first reported, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, called Mr. Szijjártó while he was attending the Munich Security Conference to seek his support. Earlier this month, Hungary along with the Czech Republic blocked proposed EU sanctions on a dozen Israeli citizens.
President Biden has apparently not yet gotten the memo on that — or if he has, maybe he doesn’t care to read it. On Wednesday the Times of Israel reported that the Biden administration “is readying to issue a second round of sanctions in the coming weeks against Israeli settlers” who allegedly carried out violent acts in Judea and Samaria.
Hungary, it is worth noting, was among the 14 countries that voted in the UN’s General Assembly against an immediate cease-fire. It objected that the resolution failed to stipulate with adequate clarity the immediate release of Israeli hostages. Mr. Orbán, meanwhile, has banned pro-Palestinian marches in Hungary, stating these would be “sympathetic to terrorists.”
Budapest has in effect raised the uncomfortable question: Who in the ranks of European (and British) officialdom is more or less sympathetic to terrorists? The Irish foreign minister, Micheal Martin, called a possible ground assault against the remaining Hamas battalions at Rafah “unconscionable.” A similar description emanating from Dublin regarding the massacres of Israeli citizens Hamas terrorists committed on October 7 is more elusive.
On Wednesday, the Scottish National Party called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza, which set off a row because of an amendment put forward by the Labor party. Earlier, Prime Minister Sunak said that it was “not in anyone’s interest” to call for a cease-fire absent a working plan for what would ostensibly come after one. Prior to that, though, Prince William caused a stir when he said, “I, like so many others, want to see an end to the fighting as soon as possible.”
In British royalty-speak, that adds up to almost a tirade from a future king whose forebears were anointed with holy oil from Jerusalem. The sturm und drang, from London to Berlin to Brussels, is pointless. Budapest gets it. Incidentally, El Al is offering free tickets to IDF soldiers who have served 30 days or more in active service since October 7. Budapest is included on a list of 10 eligible destinations for the fighters. London and Brussels are not.
