Palestine Today

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Story on ‘Richest Man in Palestine’ Shows Money Can’t Buy Honest, Peaceful Intentions

The Guardian has a piece on the ostentatious mansion of the richest man in the palestinian-controlled territories. The obvious takeaway is that there are clearly palestinians doing very well – something not so obvious given the mainstream media coverage of the conflict. That, and the richest man in “Palestine” is apparently not Mahmoud Abbas.


But there’s another point I want to highlight.



As in Palladio’s original villa, which was built as a summer party house for a retired cleric, four grand salons lead from the central rotunda, although here they have been renamed after cities in historic Palestine.


There is Jerusalem-Hebron, which contains a library of almost 5,000 books, where a pair of antique French spiral staircases lead to an upper gallery of first editions and rare manuscripts. A 17th-century stone fireplace frames an iron hearth decorated with a crown, while a six-foot-long camera from Turkey stands next to photographs of Masri with former Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat, to whom he was a close confidant, alongside pictures with Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II.

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In his second living room, Haifa-Jaffa, stands a gold-plated throne that belonged to Khedive Ismail, the ruler of Egypt from 1863 to 1879, which Masri bought because the steamship on which he first sailed to America from Beirut was named the SS Khedive Ismail. The list goes on and it’s hard to keep up. The agile 84-year-old moves quickly from possession to priceless possession, like a keeper auditing the contents of his museum, taking phone calls in between recounting the booty of kings and emperors.

Rich Palestinian Dude has named some rooms after Israeli cities, and was a confidante of arch terrorist Yasser Arafat. But when speaking to this seemingly clueless Guardian journalist, he claims he wants a two-state solution.

“I built this house for Palestine,” he says. “All my work has been to see an independent Palestine, at peace and harmony with Israel.”

I don’t buy it. I don’t think naming rooms in your house after Israeli cities is consistent with accepting the existence of Israel. Plus look at what he says in Arabic:



Israel? I would argue it promotes the opposite.

By the way, I am guessing Guardian journalist Oliver Wainwright, who wrote the above piece, got this piece of historical revisionism from Masri:

Standing on the brow of Mount Gerizim, the steep peak south of Nablus in the West Bank, the house occupies a hallowed site of biblical legend. Canaanite tales and Samaritan manuscripts describe it as the place where Adam met Eve, where Noah built his great vessel, and where the prophet Abraham sacrificed a goat in place of his son, Ismail.

That is from the Quran, which has changed the Torah/Old Testament account where Abraham sacrificed a ram in place of Isaac, not Ismail (the forefather of Islam).

The Middle East Problem - Prager U






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A reversal of the Palestinian position: Open to Trump's peace plan

There is a turning point in the Palestinian position toward the peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians initiated by the Trump government. Nabil Abu Rudaina, Palestinian Information Minister and senior spokesman, told foreign correspondents in Ramallah that the PA was prepared to maintain an open mind regarding the American plan, provided that the plan met all Palestinian demands - even if Donald Trump did not explicitly abolish American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He was quoted by the Bloomberg news agency.

Until now, the Palestinians have boycotted the peace process because of their declared belief that the United States can not be a fair mediator following Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem and transfer the US embassy to Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas severed all diplomatic contacts between the PA and Washington in December 2017, following the American declaration of recognition.

In practice, the PA's position was that it was unwilling to discuss the peace plan as long as American recognition of Jerusalem was in force. Abu Rudeina's remarks may indicate a change in this position.

If the American peace plan supports a Palestinian state in the pre-Six-Day War borders, whose capital is East Jerusalem, "we will be ready to sit down and negotiate immediately," said Abu Rudeina.

According to him, if the peace plan includes these positions (ie, a Palestinian state and a capital in East Jerusalem), it means that in practice Trump withdraws from support for the idea that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, even if he does not explicitly state this.

Abu Rudeineh's remarks are particularly significant in view of the White House's intention to report to certain Arab countries soon on the economic plan that will accompany the peace initiative between Israel and the Palestinians.

A senior White House official told "Globes" that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, and Jason Greenblatt, the president's representative for Israeli-Palestinian contacts, will visit Bahrain, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and perhaps two other states, and will present their rulers with "elements" of the American economic plan for the region.

But the official stressed that the economic plan would only work if the countries of the region supported it. "This is a very important part of the equation," he stressed.

"The countries in the region will not support the economic plan without first being sure they are ready to support the political plan, and we recognize that," said the White House official. "I am certain that in one form or another the support for the economic plan will depend on the sense of the countries in the region that they are comfortable with the plan politically."

"This is not what we call economic peace," the official added. "We take the two aspects of the political and economic initiative very seriously, and we understand that if the political aspect is not solid enough, the economic aspect will have no meaning, but at the same time, the political aspect will not succeed without a proper economic plan."

Two senior White House officials told CNN that while Kushner and Greenblatt would examine the extent to which the countries in the region supported the economic plan, they would not ask for solid financial commitments based on the understanding that these countries would first want to see the political plan.

According to them, the US will also help finance the final economic package, but only with the Middle East countries will they also participate in the financing.

Globes : A reversal of the Palestinian position: Open to Trump's peace plan

 

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Meaning?

 

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First wheat harvest in a decade for farmers close to Israeli border

 

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Gaza Caliphate: New fashion store for Hitler Youth

A clothing store in Gaza City named Hitler 2 is displaying mannequins with knives strapped to their hands as an homage to the upsurge in stabbing attacks on Israelis by Palestinians.

 

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Leila Farsakh: Mandatory Palestine prior to 1939 Opposition to British policy and Zionist