Educating their Children: a Modest, Peace-focused Proposal

Arnold Roth Aug 6^th – See full article at This Ongoing War

This post is about making a radical change to the education that Palestinian Arab children get in their schools. A change for the better, but then - as most people know - that's not saying much.

We have posted here about UNRWA dozens of times over the years. Why? Because its existence is a fundamental pre-requisite for the hatred and passion for lethal violence that is cynically injected daily, year after year for almost 66 years into the blood and consciousness of generations of Palestinian Arab children.

This has been happening for nearly seventy years. As refugee support organizations, can there be one as spectacularly ineffective as UNRWA? As a terrorist training institution, can there be one as heart-breakingly effective as UNRWA?

We have recently been focusing on the money problems at the billion-dollar-annual-budget agency, and how its absolutely sickening focus on educating for terror goes unremarked, unchecked and un-stopped by all of the world's agencies for the protection of children. We're referring, in no particular order, to UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, Save the Children, Arab Council for Childhood Development and numerous others. Thousands of bureaucrats, hundreds of fund-raisers and no one with enough time to address the daily disaster which is Palestinian Arab education. 

Just a few recent examples of those posts of ours:

·                27-Jan-14: In Gaza, a death cult celebrates its graduating class

·                19-May-14: Will momentary focus on UNRWA throw any light on PA and Hamas abuse of their own people? 

·                10-Feb-15: The Islamists of Gaza: Yet again preparing children to kill and be killed

·                03-Jul-15: Misery, terrorism and money-making: a cynics' guide

Now there's a new UNRWA crisis. Alright, not exactly a new crisis, but a new batch of reports and headlines referring to something chronically and terribly wrong at UNRWA - the abuse of its allegedly-humanitarian mission, the mis-allocation of its massive resources, and the setting of its hugely-politicized priorities. And naturally, the principal victims are the children

UNRWA funds crisis worries Palestinian refugees | Nisreen El-Shamayleh | Aljazeera | Yesterday |  With a funding shortfall of $101m, UNRWA, the UN agency that has been looking after Palestinian refugees in the Middle East for 65 years has said it may be forced to delay the new academic year at the schools it runs in refugee camps across the region. UNRWA schools are considered one of its most successful projects. With 700 overcrowded schools in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza unable to open their doors to students, half a million Palestinian children will be deprived of their right to education. And if that's not enough, 22,000 UNRWA teachers will be out of their jobs...

And if that's not enough, there's a distinct loss of perspective here. The Palestinian Arabs are part of a larger Arab world that includes several of the world's wealthiest populations both per capita and in absolute terms. If they can't fix this, they don't want to fix it.

The funds of which UNRWA is so desperately short amount to 0.05% (in simple words: one twentieth of one percent) of the sum reported to be being laid out by the Qataris alone for something else of a comparably urgent life-and-death nature. 

Why single out Qatar? Because of the gas-soaked family business' fraternal passion, endlessly trumpeted, to "leverage the enormous and abiding symbolism of the Palestinian cause to both enhance its own profile and credentials" [source]. 

Since Qatar's owners read the news and know about the existential dangers of which UNRWA bleats, and do nothing to help, might it be a smart move if Israel were to step up and offer to take over the education budget of the morally-and-otherwise bankrupt UNRWA? And develop a suitable educational curriculum that actually promotes peace?

What an opportunity. And cheap at the price. And if children's minds and welfare mean something to you, as they do to us, prepare to weep.

A Palestinian Voice in the Wilderness

Bassam Tawil, Aug 4th.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6281/palestinians-israel-terror-shame

I cannot count the number of times that I heard from Israeli Jews the phrases "I'm ashamed" and "I'm sorry" in response to the horrific crime that claimed the life of Palestinian toddler Ali Dawabsha in the West Bank village of Duma last week.

The strong response of the Israeli public and leaders to the arson attack is, truthfully, somewhat comforting. The wall-to-wall Israeli condemnation of this crime has left me and other Palestinians not only ashamed, but also embarrassed -- because this is not how we Palestinians have been reacting to terror attacks against Jews -- even the despicable murder of Jewish children.

Our response has, in fact, brought feelings of disgrace and dishonor. While the Israeli prime minister, president and other officials were quick strongly to condemn the murder of Dawabsha, our leaders rarely denounce terror attacks against Jews. And when a Palestinian leader such as Mahmoud Abbas does issue a condemnation, it is often vague and equivocal.

Take, for example, what happened after last year's kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by Palestinians in the West Bank. It not only took President Abbas four days to issue a statement condemning the terror attack, but even then, the condemnation was at best a tentative: "The Palestinian presidency... condemns the series of events that happened last week, beginning with the kidnapping of three Israeli youths." Abbas then went on to denounce Israel for arresting dozens of Hamas members after the abduction and murder of the three youths.

Later in 2014, when Abbas did condemn a Palestinian terror attack that killed five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue, Fatah official Najat Abu Baker, a few days later, explained that Abbas's condemnation was made "within a diplomatic context... [he] is forced to speak this way to the world."

Abbas's condemnation of the attack at the synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood apparently came only under pressure from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who telephoned the Palestinian leader twice to demand that he speak out against the killings. Abbas's statement said that the Palestinian leadership condemns the "killing of worshippers in a synagogue and all acts of violence, regardless of their source." His statement then also called for an end to "incursions and provocations by settlers against the Aqsa Mosque."

Abbas's ambiguous, half-hearted condemnations of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis are only intended for public consumption and are primarily aimed at appeasing Western donors, so that they will continue channeling funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA). In addition, his condemnations almost always seek to blame Israel for the Palestinian terror attacks -- presumably an attempt to justify the killing of Jews at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

In contrast, Israeli leaders who condemned the murder of the Palestinian toddler sound firm and unambiguous. Here is what Prime Minister Netanyahu said after visiting the murdered baby's parents and brother, who were wounded in the arson attack and are receiving medical treatment in Israeli hospitals: "When you stand next to the bed of this small child, and his infant brother has been so brutally murdered, we are shocked, we are outraged. We condemn this. There is zero tolerance for terrorism wherever it comes from, whatever side of the fence it comes from."

Netanyahu's strong and clear condemnation left me and other Palestinians wondering when was the last time we heard similar statements from our leaders. I cannot remember ever hearing Abbas or any other Palestinian leader express shock and outrage over the killing of a Jew in a Palestinian terror attack. Nor can I remember the last time we heard of a Palestinian official visiting the Israeli victims of a Palestinian terror attack.

The Israeli leaders' condemnation of the baby's murder is a sincere voice that reflects the views of the overwhelming majority of the Israeli public. In contrast, the Palestinian leaders' denunciations of terror attacks do not reflect the general feeling on the Palestinian street. Each time Abbas reluctantly condemns a Palestinian terror attack, he faces a wave of criticism from many Palestinians.

Unlike the Israeli public, many Palestinians often rush to justify, and even welcome, terror attacks against Jews. This was the situation just a few weeks ago, when an Israeli man was shot dead near Ramallah. Several Palestinian factions and military groups applauded the murder, calling it a "natural response to Israeli crimes."

This is the huge difference between the way Israelis and Palestinians react to terrorism. The murder of Dawabsha saw thousands of Israelis hold anti-violence rallies to condemn the horrible crime. But has anyone ever heard of a similar rally on the Palestinian side whenever terrorists kill innocent Jewish civilians? Is there one top Palestinian official or prominent figure who dares to speak out in public against the murder of Jews, at a rally in the center of Ramallah or Gaza City? Has there ever been a Palestinian activist who dared to hold a rally in a Palestinian city to condemn suicide bombings or the murder of an entire Jewish family?

While Israelis have been holding rallies to condemn terror attacks against our people, we have been celebrating the killing of Jews. How many times have we taken to the streets to hand out sweets and candies in jubilation over the killing of Jews? Such sickening scenes of men and women celebrating terror attacks against Jews on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have never been condemned by our leaders. These scenes have become commonplace each time Palestinian terrorists carry out an attack against Jews.

These scenes stand in sharp contrast to the public statements and rallies in Israel in response to terror attacks against Palestinians. Our leaders need to learn from Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, who said he was "ashamed" and "in pain" for the murder of the Palestinian toddler. When was the last time a Palestinian leader used such rhetoric to condemn the murder of Jews? The laconic statements issued by Abbas's office in response to anti-Jewish terror attacks never talked about shame or pain.

We have failed to educate our people on the principles of tolerance and peace. Instead, we continue to condone and applaud terrorism, especially when it is directed against Jews. We want the whole world to condemn terrorism only when it claims the lives of Palestinians. We have reached a point where many of us are either afraid to speak out against terrorism or simply accept it when it claims the lives of Jews.The Israeli president has good reason to be ashamed for the murder of the baby. But when will we Palestinians ever have a sense of shame over the way we are reacting to the murder of Jews? When will we stop glorifying terrorists, and naming streets and public squares after them, instead of strongly denouncing them and expelling them from our society? We still have a lot to learn from Israeli leaders and the Israeli public.

The Frenetic Fabrication of False Facts

The Guardian, Independent, and Telegraph in the UK have all frentically fabricated a story, which has been framed as an attempt by Israeli authorities to kick hundreds of Palestinians off ‘their land’ in this “Palestinian village”.

The claim that the area is “Palestinian” and owned by local “villagers” is – according to courts who examined claims by the petitioners (the Nawajah family) – fictitious.

Based on historical and geographical accounts, aerial photography, mandatory-era maps, travelogues, and the population registry, Israeli courts (HC 7530/01, 430/12, 1556/12, 1420/14) established that no such Palestinian village ever existed. According to the NGO Regavim and the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), only a handful of families resided there since the 1980s, and it only ever served as temporary (seasonal) grazing land by Palestinian shepherds.

Further, claims by the Nawajah family that they owned the land was also disproven, and the court found that the family owned a permanent residence in Yatta, in Palestinian-controlled Area A.

Additionally, the 20 illegal structures in the encampment built adjacent to an ancient Jewish archeological site represents part of a broader attempt by the EU, the PA, and pro-Palestinian NGOs to establish ‘facts on the ground’ in Area C.

Jack Wallis Simons wrote this in his fascinating Daily Mail expose earlier in the year:

More than 400 EU-funded Palestinian homes have been erected in Area C of the West Bank, which was placed under Israeli jurisdiction during the Oslo Accords – a part of international law to which the EU is a signatory.

The Palestinian buildings, which have no permits, come at a cost of tens of millions of Euros in public money, a proportion of which comes from the British taxpayer.

This has raised concerns that the EU is using valuable resources to take sides in a foreign territorial dispute.

Finally, the charge that, if the Palestinian petitioners lose the case, they will be rendered homeless is also not true, according to the MFA:

[They] have been offered plots of similar, or even better, quality in a nearby area that already conforms to planning and zoning laws. Building houses there will also improve the petitioners’ quality of life, giving them access to infrastructure and educational facilities that are not available in their current illegal locations. Additionally, they will be allowed to continue the same agricultural activities on the lands they currently claim.

Susya is neither “Palestinian” nor a “village.” It can more accurately be described – to use the parlance of foreign journalists when reporting on Jews in similar situations in the West Bank – as an illegal Palestinian settlement.

See original article at http://tinyurl.com/ov4zgu6  

Hamas must hand over Gaza Strip

http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766664

Hamas must hand over rule of the Gaza Strip as a condition to forming a unity government, Fatah official Azzam al-Ahmad said Sunday.

Hamas has to "lift their hands" from the Gaza Strip and allow the unity government to work according to agreements signed by the Palestinian factions, al-Ahmad told Ma'an.

Al-Ahmad, who heads reconciliation talks for Fatah,added that his Hamas counterpart, Moussa Abu Marzouq is "unqualified" to call for a unity government after their work was "foiled" by Hamas.

The unity government formed in June 2014 has repeatedly failed to overcome divisive issues between political factions Fatah and Hamas, and last month it was announced at a Fatah council meeting that the entire government would soon be dissolved.

Negotiations on the new Palestinian government were set to restart after the Eid celebrations marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah criticized Hamas for creating a shadow government in the Gaza Strip and blocking efforts to reach political unity.

Hamas has in turn accused the PA of executing a plan to "eradicate" the movement from the West Bank, saying that an arrest campaign of over 200 members was carried out by the PA to target reconciliation efforts between the two factions.

So just who is there for Israel to negotiate with? The media and the world leaders seem to be oblivious of the situation on the ground. as long as the present control of the Palestinians is not clear cut, how can the Eu or France or anyone consider "negotiations" can bear fruit. 

Susiya - the Town That Never Was

[Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu]

Summary ... The Palestinian Authority is a master at inventing history. Arabs claim they have been there long before Jews although evidence proves the contrary. The tactic is conquering the southern Hevron Hills.

The Palestinian Authority, with direct financing of the European Union and blind acceptance of lies as facts by media, is swallowing up the southern Hevron Hills, a huge area between Kiryat Arba-Hevron and Arad-Be'er Sheva.

The latest chapter in the Palestinian Authority's re-invention of history is taking place in Susiya (pronounced "Soos-eeya") located two miles from the armistice line, on the western edge of the Judean Desert that leads to the Dead Sea, and less than half an hour from Be'er Sheva, the capital of the Negev.

The Arab strategy: An Arab family erects a tent, illegally, near the archaeological site of the ancient town of Susiya. As time passes, the tent becomes a makeshift structure, which expands into several structures. With the support of extreme left-wing activists, the 'ancient' town of 'Palestinian Susiya' is invented.

This makes for a great human interest story, but for one setback — the 'ancient Palestinian Susiya' never existed. It does not show up on any records.

Yigal Dilmoni, deputy director-general of the Yesha Council, states, "Fifteen-year-old aerial photos clearly show that there was no Arab village at this site ... The Arabs have come from the village of Yatta, and ... repeatedly disseminate lies."

[Back in June 2013], the Civil Lands Authority issued approximately 40 stop-work orders against projects funded by the European Union and intended to firm up Palestinian Authority claims to land where they never lived until Jews came to the area in 1983.

In that year, for the first time in 1,500 years, Jews began living in the southern Hevron Hills, setting up a community in nearby Beit Yatir, two miles to the south, and in Susiya, where the old Jewish town that existed until approximately the 6th century.

Until 1983, the area experienced zero growth. Hot summers, cold winters, with occasional snow, and the lack of roads and water resources kept people away. Any land that was farmed by Arabs was done during the spring and summer and abandoned after harvest time, until the following year.

None of the land was ever registered as owned by anyone. During the Ottoman Empire, and under the British Mandate, the rulers of Hevron would sit in their living rooms and parcel out lands arbitrarily. That was the extent of "ownership."

When Jews came to Beit Yatir, the Arabs followed. Three families from Yatta, a city adjacent to Hevron, fled because of family crimes, such as rape, and set up camp on a hill adjacent to Yatir, Their village quickly became known as the "Thieves' Village," for obvious reasons. They claim, of course, that they have been living there from time immemorial.

As a resident of Beit Yatir, and a security officer at the time, I and my colleague reported theft after theft to the police — laundry on the clothes lines, tricycles, shoes left outside and anything else that was not nailed to the ground. Further down the road, our moshav's tractors often were stolen and tracks always led to the Thieves' Village.

Susiya was established in the same year. No Arab lived there. Nor did they live in the ruins of the old city of Susiya.

But when the Civil Lands Authority issued the stop-work orders, the first step towards demolition orders, the left-wing movements and the Palestinian Authority reinvented history. "The Palestinian village of Khirbet [ruins of] Susiya has existed in the South Hebron Hills at least since the 1830."

The International Solidarity Movement [ISM] wrote, "The residents of Susiya include more than 30 families, who were all evacuated from their homes in the old Susiya village and forced to relocate 200 meters to the southeast, in 1986,"

This is a lie. They never lived there, not in 1830 and not in 1986 and not in 1996. A handful of Arabs sowed the land in the spring, harvest the crop in the late summer and went back to Yatta.

"Susiya has been the site of creative non-violent resistance for years, resistance that is continually met with brutality," according to the ISM.

Part of the "non-violent resistance was the cold-blooded murder of Yair Har Sinai in 2001. He was shot dead in the head and the back by terrorists while, unarmed, he was tending his flock of sheep. Even though his murderers were known, they were never apprehended.

Losing control of the southern Hevron Hills is a free pass to terrorists who use the back trails to smuggle weapons from Bedouins in the Negev, as far away as the Dead Sea and south of Arab. Terrorists also take explosives from the area and use the same route to travel freely and wait for the right moment to blow up Jews in urban centers, from Be'er Sheva to Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

The gradual erosion of Israel control over what is supposed to be Israeli-controlled "Area C" has endangered the entire area. Thousands of Arabs have moved in, set up tents and built homes with the funding of hundreds of millions of dollars by the European Union.

Lacking any history of the area, most media swallow up the Arab story, hook, line and sinker.

Gaza: from Bad to Worse

The world is quick to blame Israel for the ills of Gaza and yet Bassam Eid a Palestinian human rights activists, states that :-

One year has passed since Operation Protective Edge, the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and we have seen many articles by analysts this past week who fail to report the Palestinian perspective. The burning question in the minds of the Gazan people is why has there been a one-year delay of the reconstruction?

The answer is simple – both Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas want hold the purse strings of the reconstruction funds, which donor nations pledged at $5.5 billion. 

Donor nations may be skeptical of the shaky unity government. Hamas’ priority is how to reconstruct its military capabilities and tunnels, since the Egyptians created a two-kilometer buffer zone, destroying the smuggling tunnels that made Hamas leaders rich.

Now that the external funds have dried up, Hamas has issued a new tax upon the Gazan people.

A recent report by the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) states: 

-  taxes, which are imposed on different commodities and services in the Gaza Strip, aggravate the suffering of the people. 

- citizens who wish to import goods are bound to pay taxes to receive ‘import permission.’ “This implies that the competent authorities have started to implement the Solidarity Tax Act. In fact, prior to the import, the authorities identify the quantity of the goods and then decide on what tax to enforce. These taxes that are imposed under the pretext of ‘normal rise of prices’ have a negative economic impact on the consumers.

Furthermore, the taxes are imposed on governmental services.”

Also, a new tax has been imposed by Hamas during the month of Ramadan: each person who wishes to stay in a mosque for services must pay NIS 20 from the 19th to the 29th of Ramadan.

Flyers have been distributed in Gaza’s mosques about the “Ramadan tax.”

The damage caused by Protective Edge is as follows:

• 2.5 million tons of rubble remain in Gaza to this day.

• 200,000 workers lost their means of employment.

• 80 percent of the Gazan people are surviving on welfare.

• 40% of Gazans are living below the poverty line.

• 22,000 Gazans are homeless. Only 600 caravans have been provided to the Gaza Strip since the end of the war.

• 29 Palestinians were executed by Hamas during the war.

• Several terrorist bombings by Salafist groups occurred in the Gaza Strip.

The destruction of the economic, moral and psychological status of the Gazan people is still felt today.

A few days ago, I held Skype calls with friends in Gaza asking them about their feelings since the war. Ahmad, from Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, said “the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is like throwing us into a pit. If Hamas will continue their policies, they will bring more death and destruction to their own people.”

Muhana, from Khan Younis City, said, “We are living under a dictatorship regime. Hamas kills any opposition.

Since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in 2007, there is an absence of any Palestinian political factions and the Gaza Strip today looks as if the next upcoming war bells are ringing.”

Azmi, from Shejaiya, said, “The situation in Gaza right now is that hunger, poverty and unemployment have reached the highest percentage since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.”

Several reports have been published by the UN, UNHRC and other international organizations discussing the reconstruction, the economic situation and the mental health of the Gazan people, but there is no benefit from these discussions one year after Protective Edge.

According to the UN secretary general, there are no schools – no hospitals – no electricity and no proper drinking water and this is the reality for the Gazan people these days.

Today's @Amnesty Deceptions and Lies

This  posting has been cross posted from Elder of Ziyon  http://tinyurl.com/no3xc2y 

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As Amnesty continues to add to the anti-Israel rhetoric accompanying its "50 Days for Gaza" campaign, we will continue to expose their deceptions and lies.

Amnesty tweeted this:

Here's the event that they are linking to:

At approximately 23:00 on 9 July 2014, 9 Palestinian civilians were killed while they were in a beach coffee shop watching a match of the Football World Cup as Israeli warplanes bombarded the coffee shop. The victims were identified as: Ibrahim and Mohammed Kahlil Qannan, 24 and 26; Suleiman and Ahmed Saleem Mousa al-Astal, 17 and 18; Mousa Mohammed Taher al-Astal, 15; Mohammed Ihsan Farawana, 18; and Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali, 20, 28 and 23.

This is a lie. There were not 9 civilians. The cafe was hosting a gathering of the Fatah Abu Rish Brigades. Two brothers, Mohammed and Ibrahim Qanan, as I documented here.

Three other brothers from the same group listed in this "martyr's" poster, Hamdi, Ibrahim and Saleem Sawali:

And Mohammed Ihsan Farawana has another Fatah martyr's poster:

Civilians?

Amnesty lied again.

Amnesty silently changed the blood libel video first reported. They changed the video of a "roof knocking" to a different one, that can be seen here in full from YNet:

While the video does indeed show less than a minute between a small explosion and the one that destroys the house, what Amnesty doesn't tell you is that the target was Hamas rocket unit head Ayman Siam. And Amnesty's own Gaza Platform tells us that there was a much earlier warning that allowed all five families who lived in that house to escape well before either of these explosions. They number this as Incident 1475:

At approximately 10:22 pm on Friday, 11 July 2014, an Israeli warplane fired three missiles at a house belonging to Mohammed Mohammed Abdul Hadi Siyam (70 year old), located next to UNRWA clinic in Al-Shate’ refugee camp, west of Gaza. The attack has completely destroyed the 4 storey house, which was inhabited by 5 families (30 individual), including 15 children. IDF soldiers informed the owner of the house before they attacked targeted the house.[sic]

SOURCE: Al Mezan