All The News Anti-Israel Posters Will Not Read Or Discuss 2

[Sixties Fan]

 

[RoccoR]

I thought it was May 15th.

 

[Sixties Fan]

This story from YNet did not get the publicity it should be getting:

A newly released study showed Egypt was successful in removing antisemitism and other hatred from its school books, The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found. The research and policy institute that analyzes curricula around the world through UNESCO-defined standards, has released its second full report on the Egyptian curriculum, from its London office.

This latest IMPACT-se report evaluated 271 textbooks from the Egyptian national curricula, published between 2018 and 2023. The study focuses on the Arabic language, Islamic and Christian religious education, social studies, values and respect for others, history, geography, philosophy, and more. Egypt has the largest education system in the Middle East and North Africa, with 25 million children currently enrolled in its schools - the largest in the Arab world.

"Our findings show major improvements in attitudes toward Jews and Judaism in the revised textbooks, part of the year-by-year reform of the Egyptian national curriculum between 2018-2030 across all grades, which has already reached Grade 5," IMPACT-se said.

"Promisingly, elementary school textbooks rewritten since 2021 do not include traditional, harmful antisemitic stereotypes such as attributing evil deeds and negative traits like disloyalty, fraud, greediness, and violation of contracts to Jewish people. These were replaced with values of tolerance and coexistence between Islam and Judaism, highlighting common ground such as Islam's recognition of the Torah, and permission for Muslims to eat Kosher food."

Students are required to memorize the provisions of the peace treaty, and describe the “advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states.” A photograph of the peace treaty signing at the White House is shown for the first time. Passages such as “recognition of the sovereignty of each side in the conflict over its territory” were changed to “respect by each side of the other’s sovereignty and independence,” and establishing “normal relations” between the two countries, was changed to establishing “friendly relations.”

The article notes that it is not all great; older grades still use the older textbooks with explicit antisemitism, and even in the new ones students are taught that it is an Islamic duty to end the "occupation" which appears to include all of Israel based on the map they still use.

But even so, this is a very positive change. Egypt is just about the most antisemitic nation there is and the indoctrination in the textbooks is part of the reason why.

IMPACT-SE has not yet published the complete study

Egypt gets rid of much of the antisemitism in school textbooks

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Hezbollah does training literally in the shadow of UNIFIL​

Alma is an organization that closely monitors activities on Israel's northern borders.

Last week it tweeted a video published by a (non-Shiite) Hezbollah-aligned militia showing their training in southern Lebanon. The terrorists are practicing how to abduct and kidnap Israeli forces.




This screenshot above shows that this training was happening right next to a UN building.

Alma identified the area of the training, in Marwahin, right across the border with Israel, and affirms that the UN building is indeed a UNIFIL base.




UNIFIL's mandate is to ensure that the only military allowed between Israel and the Litani River belongs to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

There is no report on their website or Twitter feed about any military activity under their noses, even as they show photos of UNIFIL troops patrolling in the area. What exactly are they looking for if they don't seem to care about mock abductions of soldiers right outside their door?

UNIFIL is a joke, and it is exhibit #1 on how Israel can never rely on anyone else for security.

Hezbollah does training literally in the shadow of UNIFIL

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ Pure Judeophobia against Israel ]

The World Press Photo Foundation — which has partnered with UNESCO to promote its vision of a “fairer world with a free press and freedom of expression” — recently peddled the claim that Israel suppresses the civil liberties of Palestinians in the eastern part of its capital, as well as the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This, as the world prepares to mark the 30th UNESCO World Press Freedom Dayon May 3. The annual observance serves as a show of support for news organizations that have been unfairly targeted by authorities and implores governments around the world not to restrict journalists’ freedom to report the truth.

In a Middle East characterized by authoritarian regimes, and in the face of ongoing conflict with Arab neighbors, Israel’s unwavering commitment to free media is something to be celebrated. In fact, Freedom House, a nonprofit that researches and promotes democracy worldwide, in its 2023 Freedom in the World report ranked the Jewish state’s reputation on press freedom among that of much older democratic nations, including Australia.

Yet in a topsy-turvy distortion of the facts, the five-member World Press Photo jury praised the World Press Photo 2023 Regional Winner for Asia, an Associated Press (AP) picture of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh’s contentious funeralin Jerusalem, arguing that the image “represents multiple aspects of the ongoing occupation of Palestine [sic]– the lack of press freedom and the inability for Palestinians to lay their dead to rest and mourn,” adding: “For the jury, the image serves as an emotional reminder of the continued fight for press freedom and a world where journalists are noncombatants who should be able to depict truth.”

In addition, the highly political website entry falsely asserted that the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched an investigation into Abu Akleh’s May 11, 2022 death. While Qatar-funded Al Jazeera filed a complaint in The Hague four months ago, the Office of the Prosecutor has yet to take any action in response.


(full article online)

World Press Photo Jury Blames Israel for 'Lack of Press Freedom' in 'Palestine' | Honest Reporting

On World Press Freedom Day, the UN urges journalists to critically reflect on issues surrounding press freedom and professional ethics.

honestreporting.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The desire to paint Israel as evil is an all-encompassing obsession for some. But they thirst for new material.

+972 Magazine published an expose about Israel's ties to the Greek military junta in the 1960s:

The relationship blossomed during the dark days of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 and 1974 — a period marked by the brutal repression, imprisonment, torture, and murder of opponents of the regime, and a period that was deliberately omitted from the celebratory narrative Israel promotes.

Israel, was a besieged country in 1967 surrounded by enemies. The Greek coup happened in April - before the Six Day War.

For Israel, a potential ally in the Mediterranean would of course be an attractive prospect to cultivate.

This article mentions, as an aside:

Immediately upon seizing power, the military junta began a campaign to eliminate its real and imagined opponents, an effort embraced or tacitly supported by most Western European countries and the United States.

So Israel was acting exactly as Western European countries and the US did. This was the height of the Cold War, and the junta's anticommunist position was the major factor in this decision-making.

Yet Israel is singled out for not caring about human rights. This was in a year when Israel was being threatened daily with annihilation in Arab newspapers.

When countries choose whom to ally with, they look at shared interests, in how that relationship could help each country politically and economically. Human rights is always a very low priority. This is is true for every country in any time period. It was especially true in the 1960s when nations were divided into pro-Western or pro-communist with little regard to any other issue.

All of that context is missing from the +972 piece.

But it concludes with its own bizarre spin:

This history suggests that the State of Israel was not merely a passive player, following only the will of the great powers; it was and remains a powerful and autonomous promoter of its own interests first and foremost, willing to compromise on values like democracy and human rights in order to gain international support in its own oppression of the Palestinian people.

What do the Palestinians have to do with Israel's relations with Greece? The article didn't mention Palestinians at all before its conclusion. Israel's relations with other countries outside the Arab world have nothing to do with Palestinians. Israel's concerns at the time was with the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War, the Palestinian issue was not even close to the top priority of Israel in those days.

But since the article had no real dirt when exposing Israel's semi-secret relations with the Greek junta, it has to jazz it up to appeal to its audience of Israel-haters - and pretend that everything Israel does is meant to oppress others.

There is nothing embarrassing about how Israel acted. It acted as any other nation would. But when you have Israel, you don't want to compare it to other nations. Doing so dilutes the message that Israel is uniquely evil - and that message is the only reason +972 exists.

Israel blamed for acting like every Western nation

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

“I only wanted to harass them. I could not bear the presence of happy Israelis in the land of the Gulf states,” Al-Matri wrote on Twitter, after posting the video.

The clip immediately sparked backlash from Emiratis, including one who stressed that Al-Matri is not from the country.

“I hope this woman and her children know that not all Arabs are as extreme and wild as this insane Kuwaiti,” wrote an Emirati man.

Others called Al-Matri “dramatic and pathetic,” as well as an “impolite, empty, and petty man.”


(full article online)

Israeli mom, 3 young kids, verbally assaulted in Dubai airport: 'I only wanted to harass them' | World Israel News

'We need to shame the Zionists and make it clear that they are not wanted here,' says Kuwaiti man who verbally attacked Israeli mother and children in Emirati airport.

worldisraelnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Reuters, reporting on the suicide by starvation of Khader Adnan, writes, "Adnan was arrested and indicted in an Israeli military court on charges that included links to an outlawed group and incitement to violence."

As CAMERA notes, much of the coverage of his death imply that he was under administrative detention or that his hunger strike was about administrative detention. But in fact he was indicted and charged this time.

We don't know the specific example of incitement to violence that Adnan was charged with, but he has been captured on video explicitly calling for Palestinians to shoot and blow up Jews.


The UN has written papers on combating incitement and writes that such incitement is a violation of international law and several international conventions. It held a meetingonly last year where all the participants from many countries unanimously agreed that incitement to violence is unacceptable under any circumstances.

Yet for Adnan's death, the UN supported the person who is on the record as calling for the murder of Jews.

Human Rights Watch is on the record for opposing direct incitement to violence in the DRC, in Ethiopia, in Greece and elsewhere. It says that Meta has not done nearly enough to combat incitement to violence on its Facebook and other platforms. Its official position for decades has been that HRW is against laws that prohibit indirect incitement, but it fully supports laws - supported by international law - against direct incitement to violence.

But when it comes to Palestinians directly inciting violence against Jews - not only Khader Adnan, but hundreds of examples that one can see in MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch - Human Rights Watch is silent, and has not condemned such speech. On the contrary, HRW considers Adnan to be a hero.

Omar Shakir, their Middle East researcher, tweeted, "Make no mistake: Israel killed Khader Adnan. He valiantly struggled against injustice—multiple months-long hunger strikes against administrative detention—until his last breath. He never enjoyed a minute of freedom but dies w his head raised high. His resilience wont be forgotten."

Amnesty has also spoken out about incitement to violence in Myanmar, India, Brazil and elsewhere. But it has never denounced Palestinian incitement to violence against Jews. It also tweeted in support of Khader Adnan, describing him as a "father of 9" without even mentioning his leadership role in the Islamic Jihad terror group, let alone his own direct incitement to blow up Jewish civilians.

In fact, Amnesty's reporting of Adnan's death mentions that he was charged with incitement to violence - but instead of researching what he actually said, it implies that these are trumped up charges and that he was just acting like any normal person would:

In February 2023, Khader Adnan was arrested and indicted by an Israeli military court on charges of “incitement to violence” – largely based on his visits to the families of Palestinian prisoners and to funerals of those killed by Israeli forces.

That last phrase strongly implies that Amnesty knows about the video shown above, and knows that Adnan has called for blowing up Israelis, and instead of condemning Khader Adnan's clear call to murder Jews, Amnesty says that Israel is at fault for arresting him for incitement!

This isn't human rights. This is condoning incitement to murder Jews under the pretext of human rights.

The current wave of terror attacks against Israelis have not emerged in a vacuum. The attacks, especially the apparent "lone wolf" attacks where teens and women start stabbing Israelis or ram their cars into Jews, are a direct result of this sort of incitement that permeates Palestinian media and social media. Incitement kills - and "human rights organizations" know this, because they call it out in other contexts.

But when it comes to Israel, they either don't admit there is any incitement or they frame it as just a normal part of what it means to be a Palestinian. Khader Adnan is not someone who urges Palestinians to murder Jews but a human rights hero bravely protesting his being arrested - for urging Palestinians to murder Jews.

Human rights organizations have become a parody of human rights.

Human rights leaders agree: Incitement to violence is horrible and illegal. Incitement to murder Jews, however, is heroic.

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Wednesday was the 125th anniversary of Golda Meir's birth.

She was known for many memorable expressions, but the Arab world seems to prefer to make up their own.

Egyptian newspaper El Balad attributes to Meir a series of quotations that are completely fictional. It doesn't look like they made these up - these fake quotes have been mentioned in Arabic language articles (and even Arab English language articles) for a long time.

You can tell a lot abut the Arab psyche by their fabrications.

For example, they claim she said, "Every morning I wish to wake up and not find a single Palestinian child alive." It is an absurd libel, but it is good propaganda for Arabs who want to demonize Israelis.

The next lie is that she was asked about the worst and best days of her life, and here's the fake answer: "The worst day in my life was the day when Al-Aqsa Mosque was burned, because I was afraid of the Arab and Islamic reaction. The happiest day in my life is the next day; because I saw the Arabs and Muslims did not move a finger." This is clearly meant to insult the Arab nations for not invading Israel after that 1969 arson by a mentally ill Christian.

Another fantasy is that Meir was told that Islam predicts an upcoming war between Muslims and Jews, in which the Muslims will be victorious, and she answered "I know that, but the victorious Muslims are not the ones we see now, and this will not be achieved unless we see the worshipers in the Fajr [dawn] prayer as fervent as they are in the Friday prayer." This plays into the fantasy that smart Jews of course know that Islam is the true religion but the reason they have lost every war to Jews is because they are not strict enough with their religion.

The next fabricated quote has been used by Jews but is just as false. The story is that during a meeting between Golda Meir and a group of Israeli writers in 1970, one of them said that a Jew from Poland visited Palestine in the 1920s. On his return to Europe, he summarized his impressions by saying: "The bride is beautiful, but she has got a bridegroom already." (This quote is false as well.) Golda Meir is quoted as responding, "And I thank God every night that the bridegroom was so weak, and the bride could be taken away from him."

Another obviously fake quote is that when she first came to Eilat, which is close to Saudi Arabia, she said, ""I smell the scent of my ancestors in Khaybar."

The others mentioned in the article appear to be false as well, with one exception: Golda's 'famous quote “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children, but we cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

Beyond the propaganda value of the fake quotes, we can see in just this one article how little regard Arab journalists have for the truth.

Arabs make up a lot of fake Golda Meir quotes

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Palestine Information Center "Maata" counted 987 acts of "resistance" in the territories and Jerusalem during April.


They proudly count the murder of three "settlers" as the major accomplishment for the month. Those were Lucy Dee and her daughters Maya and Rina whom they were so proud of murdering.

They also counted:

139 shootings
5 car rammings
4 stabbings
36 IEDs
23 Molotov cocktails

They also claimed "hundreds" of stone throwing attacks.

That's at least six violent attacks every day of April, mot of which are not even reported anywhere.

Their press release also contradicts the progressive chargethat Israel increases its attacks on Ramadan. They freely admit that Palestinian terror increases every Ramadan and Israel knows and prepares for it:: "The Palestinian resistance invests the blessed month of Ramadan by raising the morale of the resistance fighters and intensifying their operations. This is what the Israeli security and military services calculate when the month of Ramadan comes every year."

In addition, the specifically cheer a child terrorist, 15-year-old, Ibrahim Zamar, who carried out a shooting attack in Jerusalem injuring two.

As we've seen countless times, the messages of supporting terror and bragging about murdering Jews are explicit in Arabic, while they have many propagandists who say the opposite message in English, that Israel is the aggressor.

Palestinian NGO brags about the high number of April terror attacks

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Hollie]

 

[P F Tinmore]

Reuters, reporting on the suicide by starvation of Khader Adnan, writes, "Adnan was arrested and indicted in an Israeli military court on charges that included links to an outlawed group and incitement to violence."

As CAMERA notes, much of the coverage of his death imply that he was under administrative detention or that his hunger strike was about administrative detention. But in fact he was indicted and charged this time.

We don't know the specific example of incitement to violence that Adnan was charged with, but he has been captured on video explicitly calling for Palestinians to shoot and blow up Jews.


The UN has written papers on combating incitement and writes that such incitement is a violation of international law and several international conventions. It held a meetingonly last year where all the participants from many countries unanimously agreed that incitement to violence is unacceptable under any circumstances.

Yet for Adnan's death, the UN supported the person who is on the record as calling for the murder of Jews.

Human Rights Watch is on the record for opposing direct incitement to violence in the DRC, in Ethiopia, in Greece and elsewhere. It says that Meta has not done nearly enough to combat incitement to violence on its Facebook and other platforms. Its official position for decades has been that HRW is against laws that prohibit indirect incitement, but it fully supports laws - supported by international law - against direct incitement to violence.

But when it comes to Palestinians directly inciting violence against Jews - not only Khader Adnan, but hundreds of examples that one can see in MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch - Human Rights Watch is silent, and has not condemned such speech. On the contrary, HRW considers Adnan to be a hero.

Omar Shakir, their Middle East researcher, tweeted, "Make no mistake: Israel killed Khader Adnan. He valiantly struggled against injustice—multiple months-long hunger strikes against administrative detention—until his last breath. He never enjoyed a minute of freedom but dies w his head raised high. His resilience wont be forgotten."

Amnesty has also spoken out about incitement to violence in Myanmar, India, Brazil and elsewhere. But it has never denounced Palestinian incitement to violence against Jews. It also tweeted in support of Khader Adnan, describing him as a "father of 9" without even mentioning his leadership role in the Islamic Jihad terror group, let alone his own direct incitement to blow up Jewish civilians.

In fact, Amnesty's reporting of Adnan's death mentions that he was charged with incitement to violence - but instead of researching what he actually said, it implies that these are trumped up charges and that he was just acting like any normal person would:


That last phrase strongly implies that Amnesty knows about the video shown above, and knows that Adnan has called for blowing up Israelis, and instead of condemning Khader Adnan's clear call to murder Jews, Amnesty says that Israel is at fault for arresting him for incitement!

This isn't human rights. This is condoning incitement to murder Jews under the pretext of human rights.

The current wave of terror attacks against Israelis have not emerged in a vacuum. The attacks, especially the apparent "lone wolf" attacks where teens and women start stabbing Israelis or ram their cars into Jews, are a direct result of this sort of incitement that permeates Palestinian media and social media. Incitement kills - and "human rights organizations" know this, because they call it out in other contexts.

But when it comes to Israel, they either don't admit there is any incitement or they frame it as just a normal part of what it means to be a Palestinian. Khader Adnan is not someone who urges Palestinians to murder Jews but a human rights hero bravely protesting his being arrested - for urging Palestinians to murder Jews.

Human rights organizations have become a parody of human rights.

Human rights leaders agree: Incitement to violence is horrible and illegal. Incitement to murder Jews, however, is heroic.

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 1

For decades, many people, for good and bad, have been spreading the narrative that if only Israel would be a little more generous, and if only the Americans brokered a serious peace agreement, peace was within reach. For the bad, this stems from the desire to blame Israel for all world crimes. For the good, this is due to a sincere and genuine desire for peace, mixed with a lack of knowledge, or reluctance to know, or self-deception of those who struggle to reconcile the gap between beliefs and desires on the one hand and facts on the other.

This is not the place to review the details of historical rejectionism, starting from the 1937 Peel Commission’s partition offer, continuing with the 1947 UN partition plan, nor the three ‘No-s’ immediately after the Six-Day War in 1967. The current era is more important. The most important peace initiatives in recent decades have been those of Bill Clinton in 2000, Saudi Arabia in 2002, Ehud Olmert in 2008, and John Kerry and Barack Obama in 2014. On each occasion Palestinian rejectionism has stood on the issue of the ‘right of return’ of the Palestinian refugees.

THE CLINTON PARAMETERS​

After the failure of Camp David Summit in the summer of 2000, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat asked Clinton to present a peace plan. It was indeed presented to the parties on 23 December 2000. The plan granted the Palestinians a state on about 95 per cent of the territories, division of Jerusalem and a solution to the refugee problem by an international fund, with a limited right of return, (at least in the original offer). After four days, the Israeli government decided to approve the parameters, presenting reservations that did not contradict the parameters themselves. Arafat came to Washington, and before leaving for the White House, he met with the Saudi Arabian ambassador, Bandar Bin Sultan, who informed him of the Arab countries’ consent and urged him to say yes to the parameters. ‘If you say no, it won’t be a tragedy,’ Bandar told him, ‘It would be a crime.’

Arafat committed both tragedy and crime. He said no. Bin Sultan repeated his version in in a lengthy interview with Al-Arabiya in 2020. Martin Indyk confirmed this version of events in a series of tweets immediately after that interview.

There is another narrative that says Bill Clinton, on page 944 of his book, My Life, wrote that Israel also refused his parameters. I went back to page 944. It uses these words: ‘The refusal of Arafat’s offer for my parameters, following Barak’s consent, was an error of historical proportions.’ In fact, Clinton’s testimony is unnecessary. The official response document of the Palestinian Authority states: ‘We cannot, however, accept an offer that secures neither the establishment of a viable Palestinian state nor the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.’ It’s pretty clear. But various ‘commentators’ obfuscate the truth, aiming to create the impression that Israel did not say yes and the Palestinians did not say no.

A Modern History of Palestinian Rejectionism

Ben-Dror Yemini argues that media, academia, and the Israeli and global left have committed a huge deception in hiding the fact that the Palestinians have consistently rejected every serious Israeli p...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 2

OLMERT’S OFFER​

Even before Prime Minister Olmert submitted his offer, the Annapolis Conference took place (2007-2008). In an article, Udi Dekel, who was part of the negotiation team at the conference, claimed Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat was willing to agree to the return of only 80,000 refugees. This is certainly a remarkable compromise, if the Palestinians would indeed have adopted this stance. But later on, the opposite happened. Olmert’s 2008 offer gave the Palestinians a plan similar to Clinton’s, and more generous than what was offered in Annapolis, with the addition of a symbolic right of return. In Condoleezza Rice’s book, No Higher Honor, she admits she was astonished when she first heard the details of Olmert’s generous offer, and was even more astonished the next day, when she heard the complete rejection of the offer, by Abu Mazen, who also explained: ‘I cannot tell four million Palestinians that they have no right of return.’ In an interview given by Abu Mazen on 29 May 2009 to Dixon Hill in the Washington Post, the Palestinian leader clarified that Olmert’s offer was rejected because ‘the gaps were too wide,’ and mainly because the Palestinians wanted more, especially mass refugee return. Here and there, Abu Mazen tried to deny Rice and Hill’s remarks. They both made it clear that the words had been said. Erekat made a similar admission in an interview with Jordanian Al-Dustour on 26 July 2000. That’s not all. The counter-narrative suggests that Israel undercut the process – that ‘Tzipi Livni suggested that the Palestinians wait with Olmert, because he is a lame duck at the end of his premiership,’ or that Israel did not send Olmert’s assistant, Shalom Turgeman, to the meeting. Well, Abu Mazen himself, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat dated 20 December 2009, admitted that ‘Olmert offered us 100 per cent’ and that ‘Tzipi Livni did not intervene.’ Abu Mazen refused Olmert’s offer, but not for the reasons others subsequently put in his mouth. In an interview with Israeli TV Channel 10, Abu Mazen reiterated that he had rejected the offer, and made it clear that the refusal had nothing to do with the investigations which would soon bring Olmert down.

Following the leak of thousands of documents (the ‘Palestine Papers’) that dealt with the negotiations during those years, one study reveals that the Palestinians adopted an uncompromising stance regarding the ‘right of return’, and another study reveals a negative position on Olmert’s offer. To avoid any doubt, at the end of 2010, Erekat himself published an article in the Guardian, in which he clarifies that the main principle was the ‘right of return.’ This is not how to promote a fair settlement of ‘two states for two peoples’. This is how to eliminate it.

The obfuscation, (which reaches the level of deception), that the Palestinians did not refuse actually came from Olmert himself. On 2 September 2011, Olmert published an article in the New York Times and presented a completely new version: Abu Mazen did not reject his offer. I actually had confrontations with Olmert on this issue. Do I know more than Olmert himself? Well, it’s not just the Palestinians who have repeatedly stated that they rejected the plan. Olmert forgot that on 17 July 2009, two years before his new version, he himself published an article in the Washington Post, stating: ‘The Palestinians have rejected my plan.’ It wasn’t his only remark in that spirit. Speaking at the Geneva Agreement Conference on 19 September 2010, Olmert said, ‘The Palestinian side was not willing to take the step that we took.’

Years have passed, and following the presentation of the Trump Plan, Abu Mazen appeared at a joint press conference with Olmert. He said there that he is ‘fully ready to resume negotiations where we left it with you.’ It was a slap in the face for Olmert. For him, Olmert’s concessions are only a starting point. Not a basis for an agreement between the parties.

KERRY-OBAMA INITIATIVES ​

From late 2013 to March 2014, John Kerry, then US Secretary of State, made supreme efforts to achieve peace. He presented an initial draft in January 2014 (which was leaked to the New York Times’ Tom Friedman). In retrospect, it turned out that Netanyahu had agreed to a plan that included a withdrawal from more than 90 per cent of the West Bank. Avigdor Lieberman, then Foreign Affairs Minister, declared in an interview with the Daily Telegraph dated 9 January 2014 that the ‘Peace Deal is best Israel can get.’ Four days later, on 13 January, Abu Mazen declared: ‘We will never waive the right of return.’ In doing so, he contradicted his somewhat more moderate past statements. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian figure, made it clear at the end of January that the American offer was unacceptable to the Palestinians. In February, a new draft was formulated. It was more generous, including a Palestinian capital city in East Jerusalem. It did not help. Abu Mazen arrived at the White House, together with Saeb Erekat. According to an investigativereport by the New Republic, there was an explosion. The Palestinians, as usual, presented a complete refusal. Susan Rice, who was considered extremely close to the Palestinians, berated them: ‘You Palestinians are never able to see the bigger picture’. (We will spare the readers the juicy curse she added.)

In retrospect, it turned out based on documents leaked to Amir Tibon from Haaretz, that Netanyahu agreed in essence with Kerry’s first draft, but did not have time to respond to the second draft, following the Palestinian refusal. Martin Indyk, like Olmert before him, presented two versions of the Palestinian stance. However, in the original version he also confirmed that the Palestinian refusal had sabotaged the conference.

A Modern History of Palestinian Rejectionism

Ben-Dror Yemini argues that media, academia, and the Israeli and global left have committed a huge deception in hiding the fact that the Palestinians have consistently rejected every serious Israeli p...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 3

SELF-DECEPTION ​

We can go on. There are other official announcements, materials exposed in the Palestine Papers, and always denials trying, unsuccessfully, to create the impression that the Palestinians wanted peace. In 2012, I was invited to attend a meeting with Nabil Shaath. A welcome initiative. It was a wonderful meeting. Up to that moment when I presented to Shaath what he himself said on 3 July 2011. ‘We will never accept the “two state for two peoples” formula to resolve the conflict.’ I asked him if he had changed his mind. He was evasive. I was no longer invited to the next meeting. Why should anyone bother the enthusiasts of illusion? As long as the Israeli and global left wing insists on ignoring facts, it does not promote peace. It serves Palestinian rejectionism. It’s bad for the Palestinians and it’s bad for Israel.

The deception also comes from researchers who are supposed to be a little more serious. Researcher Shaul Arieli published an article in Haaretz in which he claimed that both at Camp David in the summer of 2000 and the Taba Summit in early 2001, ‘the Palestinians agreed to the non-realization of the right of return.’ In practice, the Palestinian Authority’s official and original document of response to the Clinton Parameters, dated 1 February 2001, uses these words: ‘We cannot accept an offer that does not guarantee the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.’ There was no progress in Taba either. The most accurate document about what happened in this summit is that of Miguel Moratinos, then ambassador of the European Union, who attended it as an observer. According to Moratinos, ‘the Palestinian side reiterated that the Palestinian refugees should receive the right of return to their homes according to their interpretation of Resolution 194.’ Either way, in Taba, the Palestinians submitted a position paper on the refugee issue, which included not only a demand for full return, but also compensation to the host countries, compensation in addition to the return itself, and other demands that prevented any chance of compromise. In the summaries presented by the parties after Taba, the Palestinians reiterated their uncompromising stances, which mean only one thing: denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

So it continued. Following the presentation of Trump’s Deal of the Century, Arieli claimed that ‘there is a Palestinian offer that allows for the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, with security arrangements, with 80 per cent of the settlers remaining in Israeli territory, control of the Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and the Western Wall, and the refugees not returning into Israel.’ He added, ‘People throw things around without knowing the facts. Abu Mazen offered it in 2008 and it also appears in a booklet published in Hebrew, Arabic and English.’ I asked Arieli to show me the document. It turns out that he was referring to a document demanding the return of 15,000 refugees a year for ten years (renewable after with the agreement of the parties). Well, we must be precise. This document was not presented to Israel, but to the Europeans, and only in December 2009, when the negotiations with Olmert were already history. During the negotiations themselves, as revealed in the Palestine Papers, a demand was formulated for the return of 1,016,511 refugees. In any case, at that time both Abu Mazen and Erekat repeatedly admitted that not only did they reject Olmert’s offer, but that their demands were for a mass return. The booklet mentioned by Arieli was published in 2019 by the PLO Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society, entitled The Palestinian Stance on Core Issues. There is no hint of a waiver of the right of return. There is a reference therein to the Arab Peace Initiative. Is this a serious peace initiative? Let us check.

THE SAUDI ARABIAN PEACE INITIATIVE VERSUS THE ARAB PEACE INITIATIVE​

In February 2002, journalist Thomas Friedman was invited to a meeting with Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince. He was presented with a Saudi Arabian peace initiative, which immediately received an article in the New York Times. The Saudi Arabian initiative was based on two main points: an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders in exchange for full normalisation with the Arab states. There was no mention of the return of refugees into Israel, nor UN General Assembly Resolution 194 – which according to the Arab interpretation includes the return of descendants of refugees into Israel – but only, according to Arab News, ‘a just solution to the refugee problem.’ The initiative made many waves and was supposed to become an all-Arab peace plan as part of the Arab Summit convened in Beirut in April 2002.

However, the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon opposed the Saudi Arabian initiative. The senior Palestinian representative, Farouq Kaddoumi, made it clear that ‘the right of return of refugees to Jaffa and Haifa is more important than statehood’ (Fouad Ajami, March 29, 2000, WSJ). Lebanese President Emile Lahoud gave the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince an ultimatum: either the refugee issue is put into the initiative or I use my authority as the president of the summit and do not present it at all. The pressure worked. The Saudi king surrendered and the Saudi initiative was not approved. Instead came the Arab peace plan, including two new sections. The first is section 2.2, which includes Resolution 194, and the second, section 4, which is perhaps even more severe and denies the settlement of descendants of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. (In a 2014 interview Emil Lahoud described these events behind the scenes). Ehud Olmert made it clear, at a joint conference press with the UN Secretary General on 26 March 2017, that ‘The Arab initiative is not identical to the Saudi Arabian initiative’ adding that he was ‘more in favour of the Saudi Arabian initiative.’

Hence, the picture becomes clear: the Saudi Arabian peace initiative could have been the basis for a peace agreement. The Arab peace initiative, as presented to the UN by Lebanon, which includes the words of the Lebanese President and was accepted under pressure from the ‘Rejectionist Front’, cannot be the basis for a peace agreement.

A Modern History of Palestinian Rejectionism

Ben-Dror Yemini argues that media, academia, and the Israeli and global left have committed a huge deception in hiding the fact that the Palestinians have consistently rejected every serious Israeli p...

fathomjournal.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Part 4

ARAFAT RECOGNISES A JEWISH STATE​

In the late 1980s and 1990s, there were signs among some Palestinian leaders of a willingness to compromise on the basis of ‘two states for two peoples’, rather than simply the ‘two state solution’. Following pressure from US Secretary of State George Shultz, Yasser Arafat declared that ‘The Palestinian National Council has agreed to recognise two states, a Palestinian state and a Jewish state.’ The Palestinian National Council never passed a resolution that includes the words Jewish state. Altogether, Arafat’s statement was a noteworthy development. This is also the case for the 1995 draft of Beilin Abu Mazen Agreement, in which it was agreed that the Palestinian capital would be Abu Dis, and that there would be no exercise of a right of return into Israel. The 2002 Declaration of Principles, formulated by Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh, also included recognition that ‘Israel is the only state of the Jewish people.’ The Geneva Initiative also included a waiver of the ‘right of return’. But immediately after the Initiative was signed, the Palestinians who participated in the talks made it clear that they did not really intend to waive. In November 2012, Abu Mazen told Israeli TV that he personally did not intend to return to his hometown of Safed. A few days later, he was interviewed by Egyptian TV, and made it clear that this was by no means a waiver of the right of return.

The first signs of waiving the right of return could have paved the path for an agreement on the basis of ‘two states for two peoples’. But the Palestinian stance has become more and more extreme over the years. The 2009 Fatah Conference, chaired by Abu Mazen, unequivocally decided to reject the idea of a Jewish state. It is worth paying attention to the exact wording of the resolution: ‘An absolute opposition, from which there will be no withdrawal, to recognising Israel as a Jewish state.’ The Palestinian rejectionism was joined by a series of so-called human rights NGOs. They conducted a campaign centered on denying Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and an uncompromising stance on the issue of return. This is a destructive, mainly anti-Palestinian, campaign. Because the left in Israel influences the global left, it could have played a central role. It is quite possible that a clear statement against the ‘right of return’ would have helped the Palestinians break the illusory cycle. However, the opposite happened. Instead of encouraging the first signs of compromise, too many NGOs joined a campaign accusing Israel of not pursuing peace. Some associations even joined the Palestinian fantasy of the right of return. These Israeli and Palestinian associations gain massive funding from European countries, the European Union, and foundations that deny Israel’s right to exist. Instead of promoting the chances of reconciliation, compromise and agreement, the joint campaign reinforced Palestinian rejectionism.

FIRST SIGNS OF PEACE ​

In 2020, a dramatic change took place. Contrary to all previous assessments, according to which no peace agreements with Arab countries would be achieved without an agreement with the Palestinians, normalisation agreements were reached with four Arab countries (the Abraham Accords). Cynics claim that these agreements were just about (national) interests, following American pressure. That’s right. But that’s the case for all peace agreements. The Abraham Accords reflect a deeper change in the Arab world. According to a survey by American research institute ‘Zogby’, 84 per cent of Emirati residents, 79 per cent of Saudi Arabians, 73 per cent of Egyptians, 72 per cent of Jordanians, 49 per cent of Lebanese, and 39 per cent of the Palestinian Authority residents support normalisation with Israel even in the absence of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Time will tell whether this is indeed a new chapter, which will also lead the Palestinians to recognise an agreement on the basis of ‘two states for two peoples’ rather than simply the ‘two state solution’ (the Palestinian refusal to say ‘two peoples’ reflects their rejection of the Jews as a ‘people’ as well as the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.)

ISRAELI RESPONSIBILITY ​

None of the above absolves Israel of its responsibility for the continuation of the settlement-and-outpost schemes, sometimes in violation of its own commitments, such as the commitmentfrom the ‘Road Map for Peace’ to dismantle outposts established from March 2001. This is also the case, even before that, for the accelerated settlement construction during Ehud Barak’s short tenure as prime minister. Israel must uphold every commitment it assumed and also refrain from measures that harm the prospects for peace.

But none of these were the reason for Palestinian rejectionism and the desire for peace does not require blindness nor self-deception. And when the peace camp creates the illusion that the agreement is within reach, it serves the right-wing. Because Barak, Clinton, Olmert and Obama have already made offers which the Palestinians refused. The illusion that peace is ‘at the door’ prevents the formulation of an alternative and allows some people of the right-wing to impose on Israel the vision of the extreme left-wing, in other words, one state.

It is also difficult to ignore the fact that a right-wing government is currently in power in Israel, whose very existence depends on extreme right-wing parties. The leader of the ‘Religious Zionism’ party is Bezalel Smotrich, who serves as Minister of Finance and minister in the Ministry of Defense. Following the heinous murder of two Jewish brothers in the village of Huwara, Smotrich said that ‘the State of Israel should wipe out the village’. It was a statement that was all moral disgrace. Smotrich retracted, but it is hard to ignore the fact that just as there is an anti-Zionist left, there is also an anti-Zionist right. They have a common goal: the establishment of One State from the sea to the Jordan. Needless to say, such a country, despite illusions from the left and the right, has no chance of existing. It didn’t work in Yugoslavia, it didn’t work in Lebanon, it didn’t work in Syria. But the coalition of BDS supporters and Smotrich supporters want to lead Israel to this disaster.

A Modern History of Palestinian Rejectionism

Ben-Dror Yemini argues that media, academia, and the Israeli and global left have committed a huge deception in hiding the fact that the Palestinians have consistently rejected every serious Israeli p...

fathomjournal.org