The PA's Inconvenient Truths

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3526/palestinian-authority-inconvenient-truths

Western journalists, funders and decision-makers need to know that there are many truths being hidden from their eyes and ears.

The truth sometimes hurts; that is why the Palestinian Authority has been working hard to prevent the outside world from hearing about many occurrences that reflect negatively on its leaders or people.

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority leadership, often with the help of the mainstream media in the US and EU, has been successful in its effort to divert all attention only toward Israel.

Following are examples of some of the inconvenient truths that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank do not want others to know about:

- Over 100 senior PLO and Fatah officials hold Israeli-issued VIP cards that grant them various privileges denied to most Palestinians. Among these privileges is the freedom to enter Israel and travel abroad at any time they wish. This privilege has existed since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993 [almost 20 years ago! ].

- Out of the 600 Christians from the Gaza Strip who arrived in the West Bank to celebrate Christmas, dozens  asked to move to Israel because they no longer feel comfortable living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

- Dozens of Christian families from east Jerusalem have moved to Jewish neighborhoods in the the city because they too no longer feel comfortable living among Muslims. [Israel is an "apartheid state," you say?? - ]

- Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank continue to summon and arrest political opponents, journalists and bloggers who dare to criticize the Palestinian leadership.

- The Palestinian Authority government, which has been complaining about a severe financial crisis for the past few months, just cancelled outstanding electricity debts for Palestinians in the West Bank. Palestinians pay their bills to the Arab Jerusalem Electric Company, which buys electricity from the Israeli Electric Company; the Palestinians have not been paying their electricity bills and many have been stealing electricity from their Arab company.

- Tens of thousands of Palestinian Authority civil servants in the Gaza Strip receive salaries to stay at home and not work. The practice has been in effect since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007. According to Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf, the Palestinian Authority, which is funded mostly by American and European taxpayer money, spends around $120 million each month on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

- Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction has allocated more than one million dollars for celebrations marking the 48th anniversary of the "launching of the revolution" -- a reference to the first armed attack carried out by Fatah against Israel.

- Despite the calls for an economic boycott of Israel, more than 40,000 Palestinians have received permits to work in Israel. Moreover, another 15,000 Palestinians continue to work in Jewish settlements in spite of an official ban.

- Top PLO and Fatah officials continue to do their shopping in Israeli-owned businesses both in the West Bank and Israel. Earlier this year, for example, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and his family were spotted shopping in Jerusalem's Malha mall. Of course, the PLO official did not forget to bring along his private driver and maid.

- The wife of a senior PLO official recently spent $20,000 for dental treatment in Tel Aviv at a time when there is no shortage of renowned Palestinian dentists in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Nablus.

These are only some of the inconvenient truths that the Palestinian Authority does not want the outside world to know. Palestinian journalists often avoid reporting about such issues out of concern for their safety or for "ideological" reasons. These journalists have been taught that it is forbidden to hang out the dirty laundry.


Western journalists, funders and decision-makers who deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict need to know that there are many truths being completely ignored or hidden from their eyes and ears.

What might civilized people be thinking when sociopaths like Tamimi bask in adulation?

Frimet and Arnold Roth 21st August

The unrepentant, unjustly freed murderer Tamimi
with the unrepentant, unjustly freed murderer Tamimi
at their June 2012 wedding in Amman, Jordan

After receiving some offline comments on the Tamimi speech we publicized yesterday, we have a few further thoughts to share. The urge to do this is triggered by a sense that something deeply disturbing is going on; it's being ignored or willfully not noticed by people who ought to be noticing.

When a politician or public figure on our side of the fence makes an ignorant or dumb or smart or incisive statement, particularly when it's about the Arabs (you know the examples), his/her comments are greeted with near-instant analysis and frequently with condemnation from a global array of press and politicians. The Arab media focus obsessively on such things. Outside the Arab/Islamic world, we frequently see European, American, Australian and other critics drawing wide inferences about how those specific Israeli views are going to bring on the next Black Plague or an increase in pogroms in France. The claim, at minimum, is that irreparable harm is going to be caused to the souls and DNA of innocent Israeli children, to world peace and so on.


To illustrate: when a posse of Israeli delinquents (it happens to be a very current issue here) beat up an Arab youth in a street fight, the New York Times says the event has led to "a stark national conversation about racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point" That's an actual quote: check it out. We think the Times' journalist's conclusion is overwrought nonsense, but that's not the point. Israel is not, never has been and should never be, immune to criticism, or even object to it, and mostly doesn't.


Now think for a moment about how Ahlam Tamimi and her hundreds of published interviews and speeches are treated by global public opinion. Pay attention in particular to how Arabs view her, since they are her principal audience.


No one - certainly not the woman herself - denies the fact that she planned and carried out a premeditated killing on a large and vicious scale, which was the whole point of doing it. The law convicted her on the basis that she's a murderer; she says (more or less) that she did it for the freedom and honour of her nation. The fact that she planned to kill and succeeded mightily has never been in dispute. She does not miss an opportunity to say that it was children, and specifically Jewish children, and even more specifically orthodox Jewish children like ours, who were the target. She regrets that she did not kill more - it's there in yesterday's video and in numerous other speeches and earlier videos recorded in her Jordanian freedom.


She appears on television and in front of adoring crowds (ask us if you want to view the video files) and expresses the vilest kind of racist hatred of Jews, Israelis and Zionists. She has done this many times since she unjustly got her freedom in October and her message is hugely amplified by the social media. She is a star on YouTube, a hero on Facebook. She is globally broadcast via satellite television into every corner of the Arabic-speaking world. It's arguable that she has the largest footprint of any ordinary murderer (ignoring "celebrities" like Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al) in human history. If that seems like an overstatement then we urge you to concede that she is in the major leagues. The fact that most people don't know this is largely because most people don't speak Arabic.


She smiles warmly when she says she killed those Jews, and her god wanted her to do it. She points to how she has subsequently been rewarded with freedom, fame, a wedding that received live television coverage. The adoring crowds applaud and ululate. The encouragement (and probably the will) to emulate her actions is clear.


How many Arabic speakers are there in the world? A quick query on the web turns up these numbers: "280 million native speakers, and an extra 250 million non-native speakers" [source]. How many Arabic newspapers? Many.


Here's our point: We have searched and have not yet found a blog, article, published speech or op-ed in her language, Arabic, which criticizes the woman or her views. So far, not one. If our readers can point us to exceptions, please do.



This is deeply shocking. Tamimi's message resonates throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Her views don't even rise to the level of controversial. She's simply a hero, wall to wall. She and her vile deeds, opinions and intentions appear to represent some sort of global consensus in the Arab and Islamic world. There is no public debate, no expressions of outrage - not even concerning the passivity of the Kingdom of Jordan where she lives and from where a vibrant Tamimi-focused industry of online and broadcast videos sends its message of hatred and death out to the world.



Does the absence of criticism throughout the Arab world mean they support the deliberate killing of the innocent people among their enemy? Does their silence mean they support the murder of children as Tamimi certainly does, and they want to see it happen again and again as she certainly does?



What does this say about the discourse underway in the Arab world? What light does it throw on the global news media?



What can we learn from here about the chances of ever making peace?

UM Schmum

Such do many Israelis describe the United Nations which is held in low esteem by the average man in the street.

The overwhelming majority of Muslim countries are able to vote that black is white in almost every case.

The latest UN report of the Goldstone Mission is yet another example of assumed guilt irrespective of the facts on the ground.

Israel's government did not feel able to cooperate with the Fact Finding Mission because its mandate was clearly one-sided and ignored the thousands of Hamas missile attacks on civilians in southern Israel that made the Gaza Operation necessary. Both the mandate of the Mission, the members of the mission and the resolution establishing it prejudged the outcome of any investigation, gave legitimacy to the Hamas terrorist organization and disregarded the deliberate Hamas strategy of using Palestinian civilians as cover for launching terrorist attacks.

The unbalanced nature of the resolution establishing the Mission was the reason that so many States on the Council, including all member states of the European Union, Switzerland, Canada, Korea and Japan, did not support it, and why many distinguished individuals, including former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, refused invitations to head the Mission.
Notwithstanding its reservations, Israel has undertaken to read the Report carefully - as it does with all reports prepared by international and national organizations. Israel is committed to acting fully in accordance with international law and to examining any allegations of wrongdoing by its own forces. To date, the IDF has opened investigations into over 100 allegations regarding the conduct of its forces during the Gaza Operation. While most of these investigations were closed because the allegations were found baseless, 23 criminal investigations were opened and are still pending.

There are so many distortions of what actually happened that Israel’s foreign ministry has launched a special website (http://www.mfa.gov.il/GAZAFACTS)which provides factual information addressing the legal and political context of the conflict in Gaza, the issue of Gaza war crimes, the issue of human rights and the investigations into the Israeli military conduct during combat.

The website discusses various issues relating to the Israeli military operation undertaken by the Israel Defense Force (IDF), better known as "Operation Cast Lead" or "The Gaza Operation" in December 2008-January 2009.

The Best Secret in the Mediterranean

Willy Stern of the Weekly Standard, July 27, 2009 writes:-

"Perhaps nowhere else on the globe does there exist a greater discrepancy between perception and reality than Israel. The press portrays the country as a savage land racked by war and terrorism... The reality, though, is a country of 7.4 million people whose stock market and economy are humming along quite nicely (at least in contrast to the rest of the globe) and whose citizens revel in their chic Mediterranean lifestyle…

"In Israel, life goes on. The Western newspapers just don't notice or don’t want to notice. Israel today has become a vibrant, functioning jewel of a nation tucked into the eastern flank of the Mediterranean. Tel Aviv looks more like San Diego or Barcelona than Baghdad or Kabul. On a recent five-mile run along Tel Aviv's Gordon Beach, I saw Israeli yuppies cycling the boardwalk on $1,500 Italian mountain bikes, teenagers in full-body wetsuits surfing the breakers, a deep-cleavaged Russian model (nobody seemed to know her name) doing a photo shoot in a skimpy bikini whilst middle-aged Israeli men with potbellies and hairy chests shamelessly gawked, rows of high-priced yachts docked at the Tel Aviv marina, an endless stream of private planes on final approach to small Sde Dov Airport, and two Israeli soldiers in drab green uniforms making out in the sand and drinking Heineken. A nation at war? It seemed more like high season at Coney Island…

In the fourth quarter last year, when the global economy went all to hell, Israel's annual, quarter-over-quarter rate of GDP was only off 0.5 percent, the best figure in the industrialized world. (The United States was off 6.3 percent and Japan 12.1 percent.) What's the secret? A very conservative banking system…No mortgage crisis…A current account surplus since 2003…Negligible inflation…Prudent governmental fiscal policy… Healthy integration into the world economy. Last year, 483 Israeli high-tech companies raised a whopping $2.08BN (only US companies raised more). All the major tech players – Google, Microsoft, IBM – have large research centers in Israel. They go where the talent is…'Israel is today the third-hottest spot [after Silicon Valley and Boston] for high-tech venture capital in the world…'

Believe me there is an awful lot more to Israel than the postings in the international media but then they claim that it is not newsworthy!! Such hypocracy.

The "Terrible" Treatment of Sick Palestinians from Gaza

Sick Palestinians 'asked to spy' - so reads a BBC report following on from a report by Physicians for Human Rights. The Non Governmental Organisation claims it has documented around 30 cases of treatment being denied to Palestininas from Gaza because the patients refused to become "informants".

Now forgive me for being sceptical but as with many newspaper reporters, the comments of Palestinians are accepted at face value without any checking of the validity of such statements.

1) Everyone coming into Israel through any entry point is questioned automatically, especially when there is a high risk of them being part of a terror organisation. Wouldn't Hamas love to get some of their terrorists into Israel?

2) there have been cases were so-called "sick" patients were caught trying to get into Israel to comitt terror attacks.

3) every day between 20 -50 cases are documented of Palestinians being allowed into Israel for medical treatment.

4) even the Fatah terrorists from Gaza being hounded to death in Gaza have been allowed into Israel for medical treatment Of the 188 Fatah members who entered Israel, 35 were sent back to Gaza on Sunday at the request of Abbas, who had initially asked Israel to treat the wounded and only facilitate the transfer to the West Bank of five members of the Hilles clan, including its leader Ahmed Hilles.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2008/Palestinians+associated+with+Fatah+allowed+entry+into+Israel+3-Aug-2008.htm

Yes, it is easy to make statements that "fit" an organisation's agenda but of the information that is reported , where do we see confirmation from an independant source?

According to all opinion polls, the Palestinians still favour violence and resistance. Are we to ignore this and not to question those that want to come into Israel?

Oh, and as a postscript. Where are the comments on the total and absolute closure of the Rafah crossing into Egypt? Why can't the sick be treated by their Egyptian "brothers"? Now there's a thought!!

Reflections on a Birthday

So there it is – gone. After all the razz-a-matazz, all the planning (good and bad), all the security concerns, the tons of meat and chickens barbequed, we now settle back into a routine. Yes there is the Presidents conference to come this week, the guest list impressive. It seems the Swiss are put out by not being invited. Well, if they feel it unjustified, maybe they should consider what their business deals with Iran are going to cause for Europe in general and Israel in particular.

The routine we are returning to also involves helping others and one of the first aid crews to enter Myanmar after the cyclone was, yes, you guessed it, the Israeli team. Talking to the Israeli media, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3541463,00.html Josh Krieger of the Latet organization reported of the difficult sights and the great damage caused by the storm, as well as of the difficulties posed by the authorities.

"You see a chaos which is only now being treated. Trees on the roads, destructed houses, roofless houses, water and fuel shortages," he said.

Krieger is one of the only volunteers who managed to enter Myanmar, after the ruling junta refused to allow aid teams to enter its territory. Many international aid crews, including United Nations organizations, have been waiting In Thailand for days in hopes of receiving an approval to enter the country.

Meanwhile Hamas is desperately trying to generate sympathy for the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627049950&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Gaza officials said Saturday that they switched off all three turbines that had been generating electricity for hundreds of thousands of Gazans. Energy official Kaanan Obeid said Israel hadn't provided enough diesel to run the power plant. Ninety percent of Gaza City was plunged in darkness Saturday night, Obeid said.

Whilst true that Israel didn't deliver as much fuel as planned to Gaza last week because Palestinian terrorists attacked the crossing used to deliver it, it is also reported that Hamas is taking supplies for itself. Now I wonder what for? Surely not the rockets and mortars?

And finally, looking at the overseas media and the programs on the BBC reporting on the birthday, all I can say is that in general, the anti Israel feelings and deligitimisation of the State are very healthy and surviving on the incessant use of incorrect and distorted information, but then what’s new?

"Peace in our time" -who is kidding who?

There is a major humanitarian problem in Israel. Sderot has borne over 50% of all missiles launched over the last few years and 20% of the town’s 20,000 population has left

Now with the escalation in the use of Grad missiles smuggled into Gaza via Egypt when the border was breached, Ashkelon and its environs are now under attack – this represents around 250,000 citizens of the State of Israel. 7 citizens of Sderot have killed, 4 of those under 18 years old













The main consequence of this daily attack is TRAUMA - a large percentage of Israeli families are now traumatized, a state that is likely to continue for many years even if the attacks stopped today.

The effects are.
- Loss of business / unemployment
- Inability to work
- Children’s education is suffering
- Mental health problems well above the average
- People having to be constantly aware of their surroundings in order to take cover in 15 secs

Kassams and Grads are rockets, not missiles, and thus cannot be targeted specifically. That makes it a weapon of terror.

Captured Israeli soldiers are prisoners of war. Unlike prisoners in Israeli jails, he receives no human rights under Geneva Conventions. No Red Cross visits.

The media is constantly being used, abused and manipulated, eg the spoofs or Pallywood productions. Hamas leaders holding a government meeting by candlelight, as daylight cuts across the photo from a slit in the curtain!

And is there a humanitarian crisis in Gaza? Life is not easy for the average Palestinian in the Gaza Strip but in the 8.5 months since Hamas took control of the Gaza strip 17,246 trucks carrying 397,439 tons of food and essential goods have passed through the various crossings in spite of Hamas’ attempts to sabotage the crossings. And goods are crossing daily

We are all wanting PEACE Isn’t it time for the Palestinians to prove they want peace and not just complain about the Israelis. Israel left Gaza, a painful and risky action with no demands on the other side. It is time that the Palestinians made one - just one - similar gesture of substance.

But is this the case NO!!

In an in-depth interview published today in the Jordanian daily Al-Dustur, Abbas said

Here are some highlights from that interview: Al-Dustur, February 28, 2008

The Arab Situation
"Now we are against armed conflict because we are unable. In the future stages, things may be different... "

We reject the Jewishness of the state
The Palestinian President emphasized his rejection of what is described as the Jewishness of the state [Israel], and said: "We rejected this proposal at the Annapolis conference last November in the USA, and the conference was almost aborted because of it..."

The Resistance (Terror?)
The Palestinian President spoke about the resistance, saying: "I was honored to be the one to shoot the first bullet in 1965 [Fatah terror against Israel began in 1965] ,and having taught resistance to many in this area and around the world, defining it and when it is beneficial and when it is not... we had the honor of leading the resistance.We taught everyone what resistance is, including the Hezbollah, who were trained in our camps [i.e. PLO camps in the 60s and 70s]."

Recognition of Israel
"I don't demand that the Hamas movement recognize Israel. I only demanded of the [Palestinian] national unity government that would work opposite Israel in recognition of it. And this I told to Syrian President Bashir Assad, and he supported this idea."

Just how can peace be around the corner with these attitudes?

"Now just where did the term "Palestinian" come from?"

Attended a conference this week, there were participants from many European countries. The object of the conference was to try to find ways of combating anti Semitism.

As the opening speaker put it, whereas in essence, the self declared elites of Europe found it necessary in the past to whisper their views in the corridors or over tea, they now feel able to openly declare their views and consequently it has become open season to deligitmize the sate of Israel.

Sitting next to one participant from Norway, he asked me “where is information available on the origin of the term “Palestinian”. Having been asked this question by a strong supporter of Israel prompted me to offer the following in this current blog. The full information can be found at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf1.html#b

The term "Palestine" is derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name “Palaestina” to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.

Jews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., and the second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E. The northern part of Israel lasted until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom survived until the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward before most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 C.E.

In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be 3,000 years old today.

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

“We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.”

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is an invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for century’s part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."

A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."