More Lies from Abbas about the "Intifada": Bassam Tawil, Gatestone Institute, Dec. 17, 2015 — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now wants us to believe that the Palestinian "youths," who are sent out to murder Jewish soldiers and civilians, are acting out of "despair."
The Price of Unjustifiable Murder: Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary, Dec. 15, 2015 — There are tipping points in history in which trends that were once thought permanent prove to be temporary.
A Portrait of the Terrorist as a Young Man, or Woman: Simona Weinglass, Times of Israel, Dec. 6, 2015— Ever since the current wave of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks began two and a half months ago, commentators have expressed perplexity at the seeming pointlessness of it all.
The Hamas 'Legacy': Dr. Limor Samimian-Darash, Israel Hayom, Dec. 15, 2015— Hamas released another propaganda video this week, in honor of the anniversary of the terrorist group's establishment.
'Jerusalem Ramming Terrorist was a Hamas Member': Israel Hayom, Dec. 15, 2015
On its Anniversary, Hamas Vows to 'Keep its Weapon Directed at the Israeli Occupation Only': Coral Braun, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 15, 2015
Hamas and the Islamic State: Growing Cooperation in the Sinai: Ehud Yaari, Washington Institute, Dec. 15, 2015
The Facebook Intifada: Robert Fulford, National Post, Nov. 6, 2015
MORE LIES FROM ABBAS ABOUT THE "INTIFADA"
Bassam Tawil
Gatestone Institute, Dec. 17, 2015
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas now wants us to believe that the Palestinian "youths," who are sent out to murder Jewish soldiers and civilians, are acting out of "despair." He wants us to believe that these "youths" decided to murder Jews because their dream of a two-state solution has not been realized. Abbas is also trying to convince us that these "youths" are upset about Israeli checkpoints, construction in settlements, and visits by Jews to the Noble Sanctuary (Temple Mount).
These latest statements by President Abbas show that he is either completely disconnected from reality, or else thinks that everyone will believe whatever he tells them. His claim — that the Palestinian assailants who carry out stabbing and car ramming attacks against Israelis, are frustrated because the two-state solution has not yet been realized — is, frankly, an insult. We still have never encountered one case — ever — where a terrorist complained about the absence of a two-state solution. Also, contrary to Abbas's claim, none of the terrorists has ever complained about settlements or checkpoints. In fact, these "youths" that Abbas is talking about are mostly affiliated with Hamas, and do not believe in any two-state solution. Like Hamas, these terrorists want to see Israel wiped off the map.
Abbas's "youths," who, since the beginning of October, have murdered 22 Israelis and wounded dozens of others, set out on their missions because their leaders have been telling them that the Jews are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. These "youths" are driven by hatred, not by 'despair," as Abbas has been claiming. His allegation that the "youths" are "lone wolves" acting on their own initiative is also not true. What is true is that both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have publicly admitted that some of the terrorists were members of these two Islamist groups.
Take, for example, the most recent case, of 21-year-old Abdel Muhsen Hassouneh, the east Jerusalem terrorist who rammed his car into a group of Israelis at a bus stop earlier this week. He wounded 14 people, including an 18-month-old infant who remains in hospital in critical condition. Shortly after the attack, Hamas announced that this terrorist was one of its group.
Similarly, Islamic Jihad also endorsed some of the terrorists who carried out the recent attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank — again exploding the claim that the "youths" were acting on their own. On October 3, Islamic Jihad took credit for a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City, in which two Israeli men were killed. The group announced that the terrorist, Muhannad al-Halabi, was an active member of Islamic Jihad. A review of the Facebook accounts of most of the terrorists shows that their main intent was to murder as many Jews as possible in order to become "martyrs." Their goal was to impose a reign of terror and intimidation on Jews to force them to leave Israel.
Abbas is well aware that the "youths" are not complaining about the "occupation" of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The "occupation" these "youths" have a problem with is the one that began with the creation of Israel in 1948. As recently as last month, official Palestinian Authority TV was stating this, adding that Israel would cease to exist: "The occupation must know… [Haifa, Jaffa, Acre, Nazareth] – all of this land belongs to us… and will return to us." Jewish visits to the Noble Sanctuary, or Temple Mount, are merely an excuse being used to proceed with the plan to eliminate Israel. The Al-Aqsa Mosque has not been destroyed or desecrated by Jews. The terrorists nevertheless continue to launch attacks against Israelis under the pretext that Jews are seeking to destroy Islamic holy sites.
The person who bears much of the responsibility for these attacks is Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. His ongoing lies and inflammatory, anti-Israeli rhetoric have contributed significantly to the poisoning of the hearts and minds of many of these "youths." It was Abbas who told his people, a few days before the current wave of terrorism erupted, that he would not allow Jews to "contaminate with their filthy feet our holy sites." It was also Abbas who announced that, "Every drop of blood that is spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood."
The Palestinians, unfortunately, have already seen this movie. In September 2000, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority lied to their people about Ariel Sharon's visit to the Noble Sanctuary. Then, Arafat and the PA told Palestinians that Sharon and the Jews were planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. As a result of this incitement, Palestinians took to the streets and we found ourselves in the midst of something called the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which lasted from 2000 until 2005, and consisted of a wave of suicide bombings and various terror attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians. This intifada was supposedly meant to prevent the Jews from "destroying" the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Palestinians knew — they saw — that Sharon and the Jews had not destroyed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, yet that did not prevent them from waging a massive campaign of terrorism against Israel. The Al-Aqsa Mosque stands, as always, unharmed in its place.
Today, history seems to be repeating itself, as a new generation of Palestinians has once again been deceived into believing that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Palestinian youths were not driven by "despair," and they are not driven by "despair" now. They are driven by hatred and bigotry towards Israel and Jews. The generation of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, like the "youths" of today, believed that suicide bombings and drive-by shootings would ultimately lead to the destruction of Israel.
We are now witnessing the same scenario. Although the Al-Aqsa Mosque has neither been desecrated nor destroyed, the stabbings and car attacks continue almost on a daily basis. Would you like to know why? Because there is a new generation of Palestinians who believes that this from of terrorism will bring them closer to achieving their goal of destroying Israel. President Abbas knows that he is lying when he talks about the "despair" of Palestinians because of checkpoints and settlements. The terrorists from east Jerusalem held Israeli-issued ID cards which gave them the right to travel around freely and work in Israel…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
THE PRICE OF UNJUSTIFIABLE MURDER
Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary, Dec. 15, 2015
There are tipping points in history in which trends that were once thought permanent prove to be temporary. Sometimes we don’t even notice when such events occur because we are too caught up in the immediate concerns of the day. Such a moment may be happening now to the Palestinians. Not only do they seem to be unaware of it, but they may be under the mistaken impression that nothing can or will change. They should understand that if they continue to practice in discriminate terror, they may ultimately pay a price, even if mass murder is something their leaders tell them is not only justifiable but think is a smart tactic.
“Justified” happens to be the word that PA leader Mahmoud Abbas used on Monday when he addressed a United Nations-sponsored event. Abbas’s narrative about the conflict with Israel didn’t merely include the usual disingenuous litany about how settlements and Israeli intransigence have victimized the Palestinian people. Abbas isn’t content merely to lie about his own refusal to make peace or the independence and control of territory he eschewed simply because he can’t bring himself to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.
Abbas has now reached the point where his pose as a champion of peace that earned him the praise of President Obama has become such a burden that he can’t manage to keep it up even part of the time. That his latest bout of incitement came only hours after a Palestinian rammed his car into a crowded bus stop, injuring 14 people including a 15-month-old baby, showed that he long ago stopped caring about trying to cultivate the Israeli left or center that would happily accept a two-state solution.
It needs to be remembered that in the infancy of international terrorism as we know it now, the Palestinians had a difficult time being heard. The problem was that their national movement and its leader, Yasir Arafat, was so thoroughly associated with the most brutal forms of terrorism that few in civilized societies were prepared to listen to their case against Israel. In the decades since Arafat’s followers slaughtered Jews at the Olympics and made plane hijacking fashionable, that has changed. That was largely due to the ability of both Arafat and his successor, Abbas, to play a double game in which they pretended to accept the concept of peace with Israel while speaking to Western and Israeli audiences while simultaneously signaling Palestinians that the long war to eradicate the Zionist entity was just getting started. It was that deception that allowed the Oslo Accords to be signed and celebrated as the beginning of a new era of peace in the Middle East. So successful was this piece of stagecraft that it survived the collapse of Oslo when Arafat turned down the first Israeli offer of statehood and answered it with a terrorist war of attrition.
Arafat lost all credibility as a peacemaker, but his replacement quickly earned the confidence of a credulous Bush administration, as well as other supporters of the peace process. Abbas looked the part of a responsible leader in his suit. That was a good image adjustment for a people that had been led by a man who couldn’t bear to take off his faux battle fatigues even for a peace ceremony. Though he had the consistent support of the Obama administration as it tilted the diplomatic playing field in his direction in its quest for “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem, that wasn’t enough to entice Abbas to recognize a Jewish state or negotiate seriously. Despite his antipathy for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his ardent support for a Palestinians state, President Obama has clearly given up on the peace process even if Secretary of State John Kerry still harbors messianic hopes about cutting the Gordian knot.
It’s one thing to have exhausted your friends; it’s quite another to throw away all of your questionable international credibility. That’s what Abbas has done in the last few months as he first fomented a new surge of violence with lies about mythical Israeli plots against the Temple Mount mosques. Since then he’s doubled down on his slurs about preventing “stinking Jewish feet” from polluting Jerusalem’s holy places and treated those Palestinians that attempt to murder random Jews they see on the street as “martyrs” or victims of Jewish persecution and part of a “popular peaceful uprising.” At the UN ceremony, he continued in this vein saying that Arabs that seek to butcher Jews are engaging in “justified” behavior because of the stalled peace process or the canards he’s floated about the Temple Mount.
Though the Obama administration hasn’t specifically condemned Abbas’s incitement, as they should, they’ve grown tired of justifying him. The more inflammatory rhetoric Abbas uses, the less likely it is that Obama would risk his remaining political capital on another confrontation with Israel or by abandoning it at the UN since he knows it will never be enough to get Abbas to make peace. The question now is whether the Palestinians’ European enablers will start to wise up, too. Abbas doesn’t seem too worried about that prospect because many European governments have already moved toward delegitimizing Israel and accepting selective boycotts of its goods…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
A PORTRAIT OF THE TERRORIST AS A YOUNG MAN, OR WOMAN
Simona Weinglass
Times of Israel, Dec. 6, 2015
Ever since the current wave of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks began two and a half months ago, commentators have expressed perplexity at the seeming pointlessness of it all. Young people, many of them teenagers, set out to stab random Israelis, frequently losing their lives in the process. Are these stabbers lone wolves? Acting out of desperation? Incited by Facebook? What are they hoping to achieve?
Likud MK Anat Berko thinks she knows. Berko, who joined the Knesset this past March after two decades as a criminologist specializing in suicide terrorists, is sui generis. Her politics are aligned with those of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but during her years of counterterrorism research she became the closest Israeli confidante of many Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails. “People have often asked me why terrorists are willing to talk to me,” she wrote in her 2012 book “The Smarter Bomb: Women and Children as Suicide Bombers.”
“I tell them that if you know how to create the right atmosphere, you can’t get them to stop talking…The security prisoners waited to speak to me the same way they waited for visits from friends and family. I became part of the jail scenery, and they felt they received something from our conversations because they were for research purposes and not interrogations.” So great were her listening skills that prisoners would talk to her for hours, hug her, cry and even give her their babies to hold…
First of all, says Berko, unlike suicide bombers, the current attackers “don’t necessarily think they won’t get out alive. They think they might not get out alive. It’s not the same.” Berko says the attackers are committing these acts for the sake of “glory,” both on social media and in Palestinian society, and like all teenagers, they compete over who can be the biggest hero. The terrorists do not think death is the end, but fully believe they will enter paradise, “where they will meet 72 virgins, drink until they’re intoxicated and have lots of sex.”
Indeed, in the meetings with prisoners described in the book, some go into great detail about what paradise is like. “All the would-be shaheeds [martyrs] I spoke to described paradise in similar terms,” Berko wrote in the book. “As far as they were concerned, beyond meeting Allah, the prophet Muhammad, and other shaheeds, paradise was a place for the pleasures of the flesh. There were eternal virgins with transparent white skin, and there were no physiological needs. There was food, rivers of honey and alcohol. [One prisoner] added it would be a place where sexually inexperienced adolescents met virgins.”
As for what female attackers can hope to get in paradise, it is often as basic as the right to marry for love. One prisoner, who tried but failed to carry out a suicide bombing, told Berko, “In paradise I will be like a queen and sit in my kingdom and marry anyone I want to. I want someone who is handsome [giggling], and Allah will receive me.”
Berko says many young Palestinians live in communities with a tremendous amount of social pressure, prohibitions and shame. In paradise, they can experience all the things that are forbidden in real life. “A few years ago I met a 15-year-old boy who had tried to be a suicide bomber. He told me that he is a virgin and had believed his first sexual experience would be in paradise. They hate the West but are dying to live like in the West, in both sense of the word ‘dying.’”
Many of the terrorists Berko interviewed did not come from poor families, but did suffer from violence at home. For instance, a woman she interviewed who had tried to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint related: “My brother is twenty-five; he rapes me and doesn’t want me to tell anyone. I’m twenty-three. My father died four years ago. I told my mother and uncle about my brother, and my uncle hit me and said my brother hadn’t raped me. My brother said he hadn’t done anything. I asked them to take me to a doctor. I went to the Palestinian police and a policeman said, ‘I can help you, but your brother is a friend of mine.’ He wanted to have sex with me, and he said, ‘Your brother won’t know.’”
Indeed, says Berko, there is a normalization of violence in Palestinian society, with children’s television praising martyrs while Al-Qaeda and Islamic State have upped the ante for brutality among would-be terrorists. “When a kid watches videos and doesn’t shrink from seeing blood or watching a person dying, you understand the effect.”
Another reason, Berko believes, this wave of violence is happening now is that “Palestinians see waves of refugees to Europe and they think who will deal with refugees from 70 years ago when there are refugees from a recent war in the Middle East?” Beyond that, says Berko, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is 80 and Hamas is hoping to seize the power vacuum by opening another front with Israel.
“I don’t accept the idea that these are lone wolves. This wave of terror is directed from above. The incitement is insane. It’s on TV, satellite broadcasts, in mosques, on the street and in schools, including East Jerusalem, in schools that we actually pay for. It’s so bad that it’s a surprise that not everyone is a terrorist. If you look at the website of the Palestinian Authority, they speak of all of Palestine, pre-1948, not just pre-1967.”
As for how to stop the current wave of terrorism, Berko says, “We have to think out of the box, not just do regular things but conduct a more sophisticated war that understands the enemy.” For instance, she says, “we have to make the attack not worthwhile from the point of view of the terrorist and their family, so families start controlling their young people. The family should pay a price. It doesn’t have to be with house demolitions, it can be with other punishments like fines.”
Dr. Limor Samimian-Darash
Israel Hayom, Dec. 15, 2015
Hamas released another propaganda video this week, in honor of the anniversary of the terrorist group's establishment. The video, which is supposed to help popularize the group among Palestinians, is shot in the style of Islamic State videos: Footage of weapons, combat units, terrorist attacks, rockets being launched and the killing and kidnapping of IDF soldiers. This show of force and hatred is, ironically, more proof of the reality with which Israel deals. A terrorist organization that systematically built for itself a terrorist state over the course of several years.
Terrorism is no longer a faraway reality for Americans and Europeans, who sit comfortably and securely watching the chaos on a screen as it takes place way off in Asia or Africa. And Hamas is not a terrorist organization that, once in a while, carries out attacks in the West, rather it is one that shares a border with us and carries out attacks against us over and over again. If not for geographic limitations, it would have attacked around the world, just like the Islamic State group.
Hamas declared that it has carried out more than 80 suicide attacks against Israel and fired more than 15,000 rockets its way. All of this with the explicit intent to murder as many Israeli civilians as possible. Summer after summer, year after year, and notably so since Israel ended its "occupation" of Gaza. And there is no international coalition calling to eradicate Hamas. Even its classification as a terrorist organization is not iron-clad among European Union institutions. Israeli airstrikes and responses are framed as "war crimes." Above all, we are subject to repeated calls to hold negotiations with Hamas. At the same time, the disengagement from Gaza led world leaders to pressure Israel to do the same in Judea and Samaria — which will cause irreversible damage that could end not only with another Hamas regime, but even with Islamic State members on the outskirts of the Jordan Valley.
Moreover, even as frustration builds due to growing global hypocrisy — or, perhaps, ignorance — we cannot forget that this monster conquered Gaza via democratic elections, which were forced on Israel by the United States after the disengagement. The latter insisted upon "free" and democratic elections in Gaza, despite the warnings from Israeli officials and even from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' emissaries. They were deluded in their belief that it was possible to tame the terrorists. If only we gave them a population, a state and bureaucracy, they would become moderates. And more than anything, "they will have something to lose." This lesson was certainly not learned by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
With 10 years of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip, there is no civilian side to the story. It is a militant organization that does nothing for its citizens — no schools, no universities, no employment and no health care. Each of these services has suffered dramatically since the disengagement. Hamas is prepared to lose everything as long it can continue with terrorism. So when countries around the world voice anger over the blockade on Gaza and call for the Palestinians to be freed from the occupation, we must remind them that the only occupation Gazans are under is that of the Hamas terrorists that they voted into power.
'Jerusalem Ramming Terrorist was a Hamas Member': Israel Hayom, Dec. 15, 2015—Hamas claimed on Tuesday that a terrorist who rammed his car and ran over a crowd of Israelis at a bus station in Jerusalem on Monday was an active member of their organization.
On its Anniversary, Hamas Vows to 'Keep its Weapon Directed at the Israeli Occupation Only': Coral Braun, Jerusalem Post, Dec. 15, 2015 —On Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians took to the streets to march in celebration of Hamas' 28th anniversary, chanting slogans of support and waving their hands in the air with green-washed-banners and Palestinian flags.
Hamas and the Islamic State: Growing Cooperation in the Sinai: Ehud Yaari, Washington Institute, Dec. 15, 2015 —In recent months, Hamas has been increasing its clandestine military cooperation with the Islamic State's so-called "Sinai Province." This cooperation culminated in a prolonged secret visit to Gaza this month by IS Sinai's military chief Shadi al-Menai, who held talks with his counterparts in Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (IDQB). Menai has been at the top of Egypt's most wanted list since an attempt to kill him failed in May 2014.
The Facebook Intifada: Robert Fulford, National Post, Nov. 6, 2015—Riding on a Jerusalem bus one day in mid-October, Richard Lakin, a 76-year-old American-born Israeli, was attacked by Palestinian terrorists. They shot him and stabbed him many times. He was a victim of the scattered, almost random violence that now afflicts Israel. His death was also one of the first fatalities that could be clearly connected to social media, which has become a 21st-century tool used for fomenting anarchy and insurrection.
