The Palestinians Don’t Want a Mandela, They Want Another Arafat: Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS, Apr. 25, 2017— Palestinian internal politics and liberal hostility to Israel came together at the New York Times this month.
Exploited by the Enemy: David M. Weinberg, Israel Hayom, Apr. 21, 2017— Two Gazan women were caught smuggling explosives into Israel for Hamas on Wednesday.
Rising Tensions in Gaza after PA Cuts Salaries: Pinhas Inbari, JCPA, Apr. 12, 2017 — The State Department published a travel warning on April 11 that called on all U.S. citizens to evacuate Gaza immediately, and to be careful in the West Bank and in Israel.
Palestinians' Real Enemies: Arabs: Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 17, 2017— Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Arab world are facing ethnic cleansing, displacement, and death — but their leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are too busy tearing each other to pieces to notice or even, apparently, care much.
Who is Marwan Barghouti?: Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, JCPA, Apr. 19, 2017
PA Tells Israel it Will No Longer Pay for Gaza’s Electricity: Dov Lieber, Times of Israel, Apr. 27, 2017
A Palestinian State or an Islamist Tyranny?: Giulio Meotti, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 26, 2017
Gaza: Let Their People Go!: Dr. Martin Sherman, Arutz Sheva, Apr. 21, 2017
THE PALESTINIANS DON’T WANT A MANDELA,
Jonathan S. Tobin
JNS, Apr. 25, 2017
Palestinian internal politics and liberal hostility to Israel came together at the New York Times this month. The newspaper provoked a firestorm of criticism through its decision to publish an article on the eve of Passover authored by Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned mastermind of a Second Intifada terror campaign, without mentioning that he is currently serving five life terms for the murder of civilians. But a more important discussion got lost amid the outrage about media bias. The question to be asked about this episode is not whether terrorism is significant enough to be worthy of mention, but why Barghouti is a likely candidate to succeed Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Barghouti is currently leading a hunger strike by Palestinian security prisoners in Israel jails. But the real motive for this gesture is promoting Barghouti’s desire to replace the 81-year-old Abbas. Given that Israel has as little interest in releasing Barghouti as Abbas does in having a new election — the current PA leader is serving the 12th year of the four-year presidential term to which he was elected — it’s not clear how he’ll pull off that trick. But the real issue here is the reason for Barghouti’s popularity among supporters of the peace process is very different from the reason for his high standing among Palestinians.
The New York Times promoted Barghouti on its pages because editors of that newspaper have bought into the notion that he is the Palestinian Nelson Mandela. While a narrative that paints Israel as an “apartheid state” is a lie, the Mandela analogy is equally false. Mandela did support violence against the apartheid regime in South Africa, but only because all democratic and non-violent avenues to promote change were blocked. The same point applies to comparisons between Barghouti and others who were terrorists before leading countries to independence, such as Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta, and even Israel’s Menachem Begin, who commanded the pre-state Irgun Zvai Leumi underground forces before signing a peace treaty with Egypt. (The Irgun directed terror activities at the British and their facilities, not civilians as Barghouti did.)
By contrast, acting on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s orders, Barghouti undertook his terror rampage that contributed to a death toll of more than 1,000 Jews years after peace had supposedly been agreed upon in the Oslo Accords. It was also an answer to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s offer of an independent Palestinian state. Rather than an attempt to force negotiations, Barghouti’s terror was part of an effort to destroy hope for peace and coexistence.
Of course, it is possible — at least in theory — for Barghouti to become the man Jewish liberals would like him to be were he ever put in power. But the problem with that exercise in wishful thinking also collides with the reason why he is so popular among Palestinians. Part of his appeal lies in the fact that he’s been in prison for the last 15 years, while the rest of his Fatah party’s corrupt leadership has been running the West Bank like mafia chieftains. Even though there’s no reason to think a former Arafat aide like Barghouti will be different, like the equally corrupt and more fanatical Hamas rulers of Gaza, the current PA leadership is entirely discredited.
But Barghouti’s popularity rests on more than just the fact that he isn’t Abbas. Throughout the century-long Palestinian Arab war on Zionism, the political bona fides of that movement’s leaders have always rested on a resume including violence against Jews, not good government or a vision of independence and peace. Barghouti’s credentials rest solely on the fact that he is responsible for the deaths of Jewish men, women and children during the intifada. The political culture of the Palestinians — which is reinforced by a media and an education system promoting hatred of Jews and glorifying terrorism — is what makes Barghouti look good to the Arab street, not the hope he will rise above a record of wanton slaughter.
The reason why Abbas has been incapable of making peace, even if he really is a moderate, is that he understands Palestinians see any recognition of the legitimacy of a Jewish state — no matter where its borders are drawn — as a betrayal. The same factor argues that a man with Barghouti’s record will be expected to pursue more violence rather than become a Mandela. If the last quarter century has taught us anything, it is that the Palestinians don’t want a Mandela in the person of a transformed Barghouti. What they want is another Arafat.
David M. Weinberg
Israel Hayom, Apr. 21, 2017
Two Gazan women were caught smuggling explosives into Israel for Hamas on Wednesday. The sisters hid the material in medical supplies as they headed to Jerusalem for cancer treatment. Last month, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan revealed that Hamas was using Gazan cancer patients to smuggle money and gold into Israel to finance terror operations.
Everyone remembers Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Biss, the 21-year-old woman from Gaza who, in 2005, was caught with 10 kilograms of explosives in her underwear, en route to blow up Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where she was being treated for burns. She admitted to being recruited by the Fatah military wing Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. She admitted that she had wanted to target as many Israeli children in the hospital as possible.
Despite the security risk, Israel allows tens of thousands of Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip every year for medical treatment in Israel (and in the West Bank and Jordan). I know this firsthand. For a decade, I served as a public affairs and development officer at the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, the largest hospital in Israel. At any given time, a quarter of all patients in that institution's Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital are Arabs from Gaza.
Treating these children from enemy Hamastan is a complex humanitarian commitment that stems from compassion ingrained in Jewish history and tradition. The doctors and administrators at Sheba (and other Israeli hospitals who offer similar care to Palestinians from the West Bank, to Syrian refugees, and, quietly, to Arabs from across the Middle East) are very proud of their efforts. But it hurts when wicked forces exploit this professionalism and good will for nefarious purposes and when they abuse our humanitarian generosity for terror.
I was an eyewitness to the following sordid tale: Several years ago, an 8-year-old Palestinian child was ill with a rare form of cancer and was clearly going to die without a bone marrow transplant. Sheba, where he was being treated, worked hard to obtain permission to enter Gaza and test the child's relatives. The doctors found an 18-year-old brother who was an almost perfect bone marrow match. The problem was that Israeli authorities didn't want to grant him entry into Israel for the operation, because he was a Hamas activist with ties to known terrorist operatives.
A number of doctors at the hospital successfully petitioned the Defense Ministry to grant special dispensation to allow him into Israel to save his little brother's life. The older brother arrived late one Friday afternoon. The doctors began the delicate procedure. They had a 24-hour window to suppress the child's immune system, harvest the bone marrow from the donor brother, and transplant. But at midnight on Friday, when it was time for the donor brother to do his part, he was nowhere to be found. Disappeared! The doctors were beside themselves. A nurse said she had seen two Shin Bet security agents come and take him away. This was a death sentence for the sick child.
What do you do in the middle of the night? The hospital director called the Prime Minister's Office (which oversees the security services), demanding to know where the donor was. Within two hours, a senior security official came on the line and admitted that the Shin Bet had taken him away. You see, the Shin Bet had taken precautions and eavesdropped on his cell phone conversations, and had heard this young Palestinian terrorist giving instructions to his Hamas handlers in Gaza on how to get past the security at Sheba Medical Center and blow the place up.
The end of the story is that, despite this outrage, the hospital director asked that the young terrorist be returned to the hospital for a few hours to save the child's life. The Shin Bet brought him back at 4 a.m. in leg irons, and the doctors indeed managed to save his young brother's life. The 18-year-old terrorist was then whisked away again.
Needless to say, this story makes the blood boil. It stings to be taken advantage of by radical Palestinians; to act with humanity and compassion, while our enemies act with inhumanity and cruelty. While we are isolated and demonized, the demons are actually those who would blow up an Israeli hospital that goes out of its way to treat Palestinians, and even Hamas family members. The story breeds Israeli indignation, rightfully and righteously so.
It also adds to our chagrin about being unappreciated by the world. Had I had told this story to a senior foreign journalist — something that wasn't possible at the time — like The New York Times' correspondent in Israel, do you think the paper would have run the story? Do you think the paper would have made such a story — sympathetic to Israel and severely unflattering to Palestinians — a front-page feature? Not likely. I can say from years of experience as a professional spokesman for Israeli medical, academic, defense and diplomatic institutions just how difficult it is to get a story into a newspaper that doesn't fit the conventional, politically correct line about Israel being the villain and the Palestinians the victim.
A direct line runs between this bias and the op-ed by Palestinian "leader and parliamentarian" Marwan Barghouti published in The New York Times this week. That paper never would have run an op-ed by a convicted Taliban or al-Qaida terrorist sitting in Guantanamo Bay, and certainly not without correctly labeling him as a convicted mass murderer. So why didn't The New York Times brand Barghouti in this way? Because doing so would be severely unflattering to the Palestinian national movement, and by inference too sympathetic to Israel.
RISING TENSIONS IN GAZA AFTER PA CUTS SALARIES
Pinhas Inbari
JCPA, Apr. 12, 2017
The State Department published a travel warning on April 11 that called on all U.S. citizens to evacuate Gaza immediately, and to be careful in the West Bank and in Israel. It put special emphasis on the volatile situation in Gaza. In Gaza, there are old tensions that are under control, especially between Hamas and ISIS. Hamas does not hesitate to employ force against ISIS, while at the same time maintaining a level of cooperation in Sinai.
New developments that may trigger deterioration and that may be the reason behind the travel warning involve the on-going protest demonstrations by PA employees whose salaries have been reduced by 30% after a decision by PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s government in Ramallah. These are the employees that served the Palestinian Authority before Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, who were ordered to stay home by the PA in order not to recognize the Hamas regime as legal. So, they were getting salaries while staying home. The reason why Ramallah continued to pay them was to employ them in street demonstrations until Hamas falls. This did not happen because of Hamas’ notorious excess use of force to crush any demonstrations, as it proved recently in crushing the demonstrations protesting the lack of reliable electricity.
According to Fatah sources in Ramallah, when President Abbas decided to take this step, he had in mind to stir the emotions of Gazans against Hamas and in a way revive the recent electricity-shortage protests that were directed against Hamas. Senior Fatah officials in Ramallah who are of Gaza origin, such as Rawhi Fatuh, warned Abbas against taking this line of action, but were ignored. And indeed, when the PA employees in Gaza gathered for the angry protest, they did not direct their blame at Hamas but at Rami Hamdallah, the PA prime minister, whose government decreed the 1/3 salary reduction, calling for him to “go” in slogans copied from Egypt’s Tahrir Square demonstrations against Egyptian President Mubarak.
At this stage, they did not formally direct blame at Abbas because they did not want to risk the rest of their salaries, but already this demand began to appear as well. The Palestinian budget is indeed in chronic deficit, which during President Obama’s time was covered by emergency handouts including on Obama’s last day in office, but the Trump presidency has changed the U.S. attitude dramatically. The British Brexit and the PA’s quarrel with London about the Balfour Declaration caused a reduction in the transfer of British funds as well.
The British are major stakeholders in the training and support of the PA security forces and the decrease in British interest in Palestinian affairs caused Abbas to ask Pakistan to step in and perhaps replace the British in this realm. Secretary of State John Kerry, during his last visit to the Middle East, asked Saudi Arabia to fulfill its commitment to the PA budget, but Abbas’ visit to Beirut killed any possibility of Saudi Arabia considering the resumption of the steady payments of the past. So while no one can argue that austerity measures are needed, why only in Gaza? Why not also in the West Bank? The demonstrators and the PLO organizations in Gaza that sympathized with them slammed Ramallah for deepening the separation between Gaza and Ramallah. In the past when salaries were not paid on time in the West Bank, and the head of the government employees union, Bassam Zakarneh, demanded that Abbas balance PA expenditures by cutting his travel budget, he was immediately sent to jail for sabotaging the statehood project.
I visited Ramallah at that time and senior PA officials told me that Zakarneh represented the opposition to Ramallah’s rule in the city of Jenin. Jenin was and still is considered as closer to Mohamed Dahlan than Mahmoud Abbas. I saw Zakarneh in the office of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s office; Fayyad was another Dahlan ally who was deposed as prime minster by the pro-Abbas Fatah movement. The PA’s policy was to allow this kind of protest to be carried out far from Ramallah – like the teachers’ protests in Nablus. When the teachers tried to enter Ramallah, PA security forces blocked them on the roads. The reason is clear – to avoid creating the effect of Tahrir Square in Ramallah.
After a few days without any reaction from the West Bank, as an apparent sign that the West Bankers actually did not care about Gaza, NGOs in Ramallah planned to organize a large demonstration, but PA security forces intervened immediately and threatened the organizers, who agreed to conduct a limited demonstration in front of Hamdallah office. We can see the leader of the NGO community, Mustafa Barghouti, in the front line of this demonstration. The NGOs also understand the PA’s budgetary constraints, but they demanded not to cut the salaries and not to single out Gaza. They called to reduce security expenses and to abolish security coordination with the IDF.
There is a conspiracy theory circulating now in Ramallah among the NGO community that the singling out of Gaza employee was a result of the recent Arab League meeting in Jordan. According to this theory, the Arab states are pressuring Abbas to yield to Israeli demands to accept “provisional borders,” and the final separation from Gaza is only the first step. This theory corresponds with an earlier declaration by Hamas of establishing “a committee to manage Gaza affairs” which is, in practical terms, a government of Hamas, far from the “unity government” led by Hamdallah. The bottom line: both Ramallah and Gaza are practicing a policy of deepening the separation, with each side organizing its rule within its borders. Facing its budgetary problems, the PA is obliged to make cuts. They did it first in Gaza with the hope that the waves of anger would swallow Hamas, but their anger was directed toward Ramallah.
PALESTINIANS' REAL ENEMIES: ARABS
Khaled Abu Toameh
Gatestone Institute, Apr. 17, 2017
Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Arab world are facing ethnic cleansing, displacement, and death — but their leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are too busy tearing each other to pieces to notice or even, apparently, care much. Between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas, it looks as if they are competing for the worst leadership, not the best. Clearly, neither regime gives a damn about the plight of their people in the Arab world. PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to visit Washington in the coming weeks for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, spends most of his time abroad. There is hardly a country in the world that he has not visited since he assumed office in January 2005.
Hamas, for its part, is too occupied with hunting down Palestinians suspected of "collaboration" with Israel, and arming its members as massively as possible for war with Israel, to spend much time on the well-being of the two million people living under its thumb in the Gaza Strip. Hamas does have resources: its money is otherwise designated, however, to digging attack tunnels into Israel and smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip.
The globetrotting Abbas, treated to red-carpet receptions wherever he shows up, has no time to attend to his miserable people in the Arab countries. Abbas devotes more than 90 percent of his speeches to denunciations of Israel, uttering barely a word about the atrocities committed against his people in Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Iraq. The 82-year-old PA president is, as always, fully preoccupied with political survival. Abbas's real enemies are his critics, such as estranged Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, and Hamas. Abbas is currently focused on undermining Dahlan and preventing Hamas from taking control of the West Bank. In the past few years, Abbas has also demonstrated an obsession with isolating and delegitimizing Israel in the international arena. For him, this mission is more sacred than saving the lives of Palestinians.
Notably, neither Abbas's Palestinian Authority nor Hamas dares to criticize Arab countries for their mistreatment of Palestinians. In this, they are nothing if not savvy: critics in Arab states pay an extremely nasty price for forthrightness. Consider for a moment the agenda of the recent Arab League summit in Jordan. This monumental meeting was conspicuously silent on the plight of Palestinians in Arab lands. The Arab heads of state and monarchs do not like to be reminded of how badly they treat Palestinians and subject them to discriminatory and apartheid laws. Beneath the public Arab support for the Palestinians rests a ruthless policy of oppression that is largely ignored by Palestinian leaders, the international community and mainstream Western media.
This apathy has turned Palestinians in the Arab countries into easy prey. The Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, which once housed nearly one million Palestinians, stands almost empty after six years of Syria's civil war. Most of the camp's houses have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting between the Syrian army, Palestinian factions, ISIS terrorists and Syrian opposition groups. More than 3,400 Palestinians have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the civil war. Thousands of Palestinians are believed to be held in various Syrian government prisons. Another 80,000 have fled Syria to neighboring countries.
In nearby Lebanon, the conditions of Palestinians are no better. Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, home to nearly half a million people, were long ago turned into ghettos surrounded by the Lebanese security forces. In recent years, the camps have become battlefields for rival Palestinian gangs and other terrorists, many of whom are affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS. About 10 years ago, the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon was shelled by the Lebanese army; most of its houses were destroyed. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to flee the camp; hundreds were killed and wounded after a Palestinian terror leader, Shaker al-Absi, and his men launched a series of deadly attacks on Lebanese targets, and the Lebanese army assaulted the camp. Before they were attacked by the Lebanese army, Al-Absi and his men had barricaded themselves inside the camp, using civilians as human shields…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Who is Marwan Barghouti?: Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, JCPA, Apr. 19, 2017—Marwan Barghouti is “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” said the New York Times at the end of Barghouti’s op-ed on April 17th. Following the uproar that this description caused, the NYT editor added a note: “This article explained the writer’s prison sentence but neglected to provide sufficient context by stating the offenses of which he was convicted. They were five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization. Mr. Barghouti declined to offer a defense at his trial and refused to recognize the Israeli court’s jurisdiction and legitimacy.”
PA Tells Israel it Will No Longer Pay for Gaza’s Electricity: Dov Lieber, Times of Israel, Apr. 27, 2017—The Palestinian Authority on Thursday informed Israel it would no longer pay for electricity that the Jewish state supplies to the Gaza Strip, as a power crisis in the Hamas-run enclave deepened.
A Palestinian State or an Islamist Tyranny?: Giulio Meotti, Gatestone Institute, Apr. 26, 2017 —From the United Nations to the European Union and the mainstream press, it seems that the Jews living in Judea and Samaria are the obstacle for the Middle East coexistence. But have these well-known "observers" really observed what is going on in the areas self-governed by the Palestinian Authority, and that two-thirds of the world's nations want to turn into another Arab-Islamic state?
Gaza: Let Their People Go!: Dr. Martin Sherman, Arutz Sheva, Apr. 21, 2017—“If the borders opened for one hour, 100,000 young people would leave Gaza” – Rashid al-Najja, vice dean, Gaza’s Al-Azhar University…
